


I know moments measured by a kiss

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 68
Words: 24,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27247819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "I know moments measured / by a kiss, or a tear, a pass of the hand along a loved one's face." - Li-Young Lee, 'Always a Rose'Stand-alone prompts from kashimalin-fanfiction's "50 Types of Kisses" writing prompt list, ranging from 300-700 words on average, involving both romantic and platonic pairings.
Relationships: Amy Benson/Tom Riddle, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Asha Greyjoy/Qarl the Maid, Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Cersei Lannister/Catelyn Tully Stark, Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Domeric Bolton & Harrion Karstark, Domeric Bolton/Robb Stark, Edric "Ned" Dayne/Arya Stark, Elissa Farman/Rhaena Targaryen, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Harrold Hardyng/Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister/Benjen Stark, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Jeyne Poole/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Maegor Targaryen (Son of Aerion)/Original Character(s), Myrcella Baratheon/Trystane Martell, Olyvar Frey/Lyra Mormont, Quentyn Martell/Sansa Stark, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Rickard Stark/Rhaella Targaryen, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling, Robert Baratheon/Ned Stark, Sansa Stark/Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Sansa Stark/Mya Stone, Satin Flowers/Jon Snow, Shireen Baratheon/Bran Stark, Sirius Black/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Petunia Evans Dursley, Tommen Baratheon/Sansa Stark, Tywin Lannister & Catelyn Tully Stark
Comments: 51
Kudos: 83





	1. Hello kiss given without thinking (Nate/Holly)

#10 - Holly/Nate

“I come bearing gifts,” Holly says smoothly, pushing open the door to her office with her hip, balancing a carton of drinks from Haley’s Bakery. Farah immediately crowds her, eager for hers, as Holly pivots away and sets it on her desk, which is still covered in haphazard silver duct tape on one corner. Her eyes meet Adam’s, narrowing. Nate suppresses a grin.

“I’ll have it fixed this weekend,” Adam concedes gruffly.

“Thank you,” she replies tartly, and slides his green tea over to him, ignoring his scrutinizing stare. “It’s matcha, you’ll love it.”

Farah has flung herself across the desk, her cheek level with one of Holly’s reports. “Please,” she says, with exaggerated affect. “I need sustenance.”

“She needs sugar,” Morgan mutters, gently rotating in a circle in Holly’s wheeled chair.

“One salted caramel hot chocolate,” Holly hands it over to her; Farah pops up into a seated position, tearing the wrapper off the straw and lobbing it into the overflowing trash bin.

“Morgan, why is there a cigarette butt in my bin?” Holly remarks dryly.

“You won’t get an ash tray,” Morgan grouses, then allows, “I’ll take it out before we go.”

“You’d better.” Holly gives Morgan her cinnamon latte, which has just as much, if not, sugar in it as the hot chocolate, Nate thinks in bemusement.

Finally, she turns to him. “Hello,” she says, more formally than she has any of the others.

“Hello,” he says, brushing a stray lock of black hair behind her ear. Holly blinks and leans into his touch almost compulsively, then pushes his drink into his hands. “One peach tea.”

He leans down to grab it from her, stepping away from her small bookshelf, and brushes her mouth with his automatically, without even thinking about. 

Farah slurps her hot chocolate loudly. Adam huffs under his breath, and Morgan yawns. Holly steps out of the kiss, cheeks red, and busies herself with poking the straw through her own expresso instead, smiling down at the lid.


	2. Awkward kiss after a first date (Arthur/Molly)

#35 - Arthur/Molly

He knows this was a terrible date. It had to have been a terrible date, because Molly Prewett, the most talkative, bold, confident girl he knows, hasn’t said a single word for the entire carriage ride back up to the castle, instead staring out the window at the autumn landscape outside, now complete with sleeting rain. This entire week they had wonderful weather, and it even held up for the Quidditch match yesterday- which Gryffindor won, he might add- but of course no sooner had he set foot in Hogsmeade with Molly then the heavens opened up. 

He’s beginning to think he might be cursed. This has been a disaster from start to finish. He tripped on his way over to her desk in Charms to ask her out, earning several sneering laughs from their housemates, he stuttered and trailed off awkwardly at the end of his too-long, too-hesitant question about what she was doing this weekend, he was too overwhelmed and shy to even respond when she called something cheery after him as he left, so shocked she’d agreed to a date- pretty, vivacious, popular Molly, with her flaming red hair contained to a bouncy ponytail, her round, freckled cheeks as pink as her plump lips, and her loud, ringing laugh, clear as bell and twice as nice to listen to.

Then their date- what kind of idiot takes a girl to Gladrags on a first date? Antiquing? Is he sixty years old? But he didn’t know what to do and the pubs were packed and it was raining so badly that just walking around to chat wasn’t an option, so they rushed into the first shop he pointed out. Then he rambled for far too long about a muggle accompanion- no, accordion, it’s called an accordion- and what sort of music it was popular in, according to his research for Muggle Studies- who talks about homework on a first date?

She was probably bored silly. She probably regrets ever agreeing to this trainwreck of an afternoon. He should apologize. Or something. There’s loads of things she could have been doing other than pitying him- too skinny, too tall, big-eared, knobby kneed, carroty Arthur-

“I had a really great time,” she says abruptly, turning to him, face set in determination, as if she’s prepared to argue her way… to what, he’s not sure. He just knows she likes to argue. It gives him butterflies.

“You- you did?” His voice cracks, to his mortification.

She frowns, brows knitting together, then scoots over in her seat to press an uncharacteristically shy- Molly’s never shy!- kiss on his lips.

He starts back in shock as she pulls away, bright red.

“Sorry,” she mutters, glancing away. “I- I wasn’t trying to be forward, or anything-,”

Arthur takes her hand in his, and thinks the thrilled look in his eyes is all the reply she needs.


	3. Tentative kisses in the dark (Remus/Tonks)

#44 - Tonks/Remus

Huddled next to him, Remus can feel her suppressing a cough. They’re hiding behind a low wall, mere yards away from the small group of Death Eaters meeting in secrecy- or what they think is secrecy- in this dodgy courtyard in the depths of Knockturn Alley.

They can easily apparate out if it comes to it, but for now they’re best served waiting and listening, and Remus is thankful that the wall is high enough to accommodate his lanky, gaunt frame all bunched up beneath it. Tonks is crouched next to him, her hair having shifted from its usual bright pink to a dark grey almost the exact same color as the wall would be if it were daylight. 

In the darkness, her eyes seem to gleam with a light all their own, and it’s very distracting. He watches her steadily, even as he listens, and feels something cracking anew in his heart. They shouldn’t be doing this. Not this- the mission- but… whatever’s begun between them, it needs to end. Soon. Before it’s too late. Before he hurts her, or- or something terrible happens because of him, of what he is. He can’t let himself get swept away by the euphoria of it all, just because he has not felt this way for anyone in so long.

She swallows, throat bobbing, then inches a little closer to him. He can smell her perfume, tart like an apple. Against every rational thought, he takes her small hand in his own. 

She digs nails covered in cracked purple polish into his calloused palm, then raises his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles, face like stone. A warning, a promise- He wants to scowl or shake his head at her, but can’t bring himself to. 

He leans forward silently and ghosts a kiss along her cheek instead, damp from the light rain and the evening mist. Her luminous eyes close for an instant, then open again. She mouths something. He’s not quite sure what, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what she means.


	4. "Do you want to do this?" kiss (Robb/Jeyne)

#19 - Robb/Jeyne

His shoulder still feels aflame with pain, despite the soothing coolness of the poultice, and his cheeks feel ruddy and bright with shame and want and grief. When he heard the news, it did not feel like ice or snow to him, his rage and despair. It feel like burning. It still feels like burning.

My brothers, he thinks. Bran, Rickon. I will never see you again. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. Kings do not cry, though. Men might, but not- not right now, not like this. 

He blinks at Jeyne, who has drawn back, lips pressed together, tears in her own eyes. In an instant he knows she will lose the nerve she’d summoned up to kiss him in the first place, will scramble off the bed and flee, lifting her skirts around her. Her curly brown hair is glowing warmly in the firelight, and her eyes are big and dark.

She is not a lady in all her finery, her hair gathered back in a messy braid she made herself in her haste to help tend to his wounds, to stave off infection, and her nails are bitten to the quick. Arya used to bite her nails. That makes him want to cry and rage again. She may be dead too. “Do you want to do this?” she whispers, tremulous.

He swallows, he should say no, he must say no, send her out, send her away, let him try to sleep, alone, in a strange place, surrounded by enemies, his brothers dead, his sisters imprisoned or the same, his mother must hate him, for sending Theon to Pyke at all-

“Yes,” he rasps. 

Some of her shyness vanishes. She seems to commit herself to this course, however perilous. He steels himself as well. If they are to do this, he does not want it to be half-hearted and fumbling and painful, for him or for her.

He moves forward, wincing, and kisses her back, harder, his left hand catching at her braid. Instead of flinching or pulling away in shock, she opens her mouth against his, seems to breathe him in, and takes his hand in hers, squeezing hard. The fire burns brighter, in and around him. Some of the pain melts away in its warmth.


	5. Unexpected, shocking kiss (Donella/Harrion)

“Good morning,” she says, pressing her lips to his, briefly, casually, before rolling back over to sit up with a sigh, swiping her thick braid of dark hair over her shoulder.

Harry lies there, mouth numb as if she’d slipped some ice onto his lips. He is half convinced he is still asleep. He stays where he is, on his back, staring at the bed curtains, a staid Stark grey edged with tassels that were once white but have now faded to something more like cream.

Last night was duty. Not unenjoyable duty, but he tried not to take anymore pleasure from it than seemed appropriate. She kept her eyes closed and would not look at him. He’d taken it for shame and regret for having agreed to any of this at all. He doesn’t think he’d hurt her, or at least he hopes she would have said so, and had meant to ask afterwards, but she’d gone to sleep, or pretended to go to sleep, and it seemed the worse option would be to force her to speak of it.

So now he lies here, completely baffled, wondering still if this is some strange dream.

“Are you listening to me?” she asks crossly, then turns back around to face him, shoving back the covers and letting in some cold air, to his dismay. “Harrion. You promised you would break your fast with the Umbers last night, and I do not see how you will do that from bed.”

“Good morning,” he says instead, hoarsely, and slowly sits up. “Are you well?”

She gives him that look she likes to give when she thinks he is acting like a fool. Usually he finds it incredibly annoying, that haughty, cold stare she learned from her aunt, no doubt, but this morning it seems less cold, more… bemused, almost. “I am very well,” she says. “Now pray leave so I can dress in peace.”

He resolves that he will never understand her, and gets out of bed as her maid enters all smiles, lips still tingling.


	6. Accidental brush of the lips (Jaime/Berena)

#4 - Jaime/Berena

She’d not meant to do it but here they are. She tells herself this is salvageable. It must be salvageable. He looks stunned, not lit with lecherous delight or righteous outrage, and if she can just save this from disaster, all will be well. She didn’t mean to do it. He’d been helping her up from the narrow space in between the bed and the night table, where she’d wormed herself in an attempt to escape Robert’s next blow, pinning her head between her knees and locking her hands across the back of her neck like a child. 

Robert had stopped at that, seemed stricken, as he always does, always stricken, never truly struck, or at least, not struck hard enough to change, and had taken his leave abruptly. There’d been muffled conversation outside her bedchamber, then a few minutes of blessed silence, during which she’d struggled to compose herself, wiped at her runny eyes and nose, patted at her mussed hair. Then she’d heard the door open again, and Lannister had come in, slowly, cautiously, as if entering a pen containing some wild beast, a bear or a wolf or a lioness. 

He’d come to help her up, as was his knightly duty, and she’d clambered to her feet, and looking upwards, forcing herself not to stare down and sniffle like a child after a thrashing, she is not a child anymore, she is a wife, a mother, her mouth had brushed his, or the corner of his. He lets go of her hands. His are very warm, and his fingers near as proportionally long as own. Witchy fingers, Lyanna would tease. Crone’s fingers. Berena coils them into fists at her sides. 

He stares at her, a queasy meeting of green and grey, then, to her shock, instead of moving away or warning her to never do such a thing again, what was she thinking, is she simple- He inclines his head and kisses her, firmly, not on the corner of her lips as she did his, but square in the mouth. 

He tastes like sweat; he must have come from the training yard, or was simply ill-at-ease in the wake of Robert’s rage. She leans into it for a long, terrible moment, then pulls back. Anyone could come through that door. 

She swallows and steps away, wrapping her arms around herself. He says nothing, though she can hear his harsh breathing, as if he’d run here. He’s always been good at that, keeping silent. Well, now so is she.

“If you would escort me to the nursery,” she says, with a false calmness she does not feel. “It is time for the prince’s feeding.”

His lips twist into something like a defiant scowl or sneer, but then it passes, and she thinks the troubled look in his eyes is worse. “As you wish, Your Grace.”


	7. Distracting from work kisses (Sirius/Petunia)

#42 - Sirius/Petunia

“You’re a horrible man,” Petunia snaps, when his third kiss, after two relatively sweet, chaste deliveries to her cheek, lands on the back of her neck, making her jump and twist in her seat as if bitten by a flea. “Horrible.”

“I know,” he says cheerfully, all too aware of the long shadow he casts over her work- if she doesn’t finish these charts soon, Mortimer will have her head, and he knows damn well that she’s got to get them done before dinner, because after dinner she’ll be too tired from cooking and she’ll just want to shower and change and lay in bed and read.

He moves in to kiss her again, and she wrenches away, but is caged in between the chair and her desk. Petunia stands up to her full, admittedly diminutive height, slamming a manicured hand down on the desk. “Sirius,” she warns, shrilly. “Do you see me come lurking about like some- some lecher when you have work to do-,”

“God, I wish you would,” he snorts, hands finding her hips too easily. She makes to twist out of his grasp, but he just spins her closer to him, grinning.

She glares up at him, but knows her display of anger is somewhat ruined by the fact that her eyes are bright with anticipation and the pink spots of color in her pallid cheeks.

“I have to finish this before I start on dinner,” she threatens. “Don’t be juvenile.”

“I’ll start dinner,” he says, smoothly.

“I don’t fancy eating beans on toast, sorry-,”

“I can make pasta now,” he argues. As if to prove his good intentions, he kisses her again, not on the neck or cheek or lips but between her narrowed eyes. “Swear I won’t burn it.”

She’s wavering and she knows he can tell. “And you’ll do the washing too?”

“We’ve got these lovely things called wands-,”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Unbelievable.”

“I’ll do the washing,” he swears, then shoves her chair out of the way with a nudge of his hip. This time she moves towards him, arguing that she can’t help herself, and maybe it’s not so late after all, and surely, if they keep an eye on the time-

She loops her arms around his neck, resting her sharp chin against his chest. “You’re still horrible. I’d almost finished that column.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he murmurs, the smug gleam in his grey eyes darkening to something else, something she much prefers. “Trust me.”


	8. Throwing arms around the neck kiss (Sansa/Jeyne)

#5 - Sansa/Jeyne

Lady Stark streams through the gates at the head of some fifty riders on a magnificent red mare almost as auburn in color as her hair. Jeyne watches with the rest of the household, stiff with a strange mixture of pride, relief, and pleasure- Sansa looks well, dismounts with ease, and removes her hat as she falls into easy conversation with the castellan, leading her mare behind her towards the stables, where the new slate roof gleams in the summer sunlight. Jeyne watches her go, then relays her orders to the understewards and pages, before heading inside herself. 

Sansa’s solar is full of light, and brimming with flowers and plants, including a potted lemon tree, strategically placed in the warmest corner of the room, next to the heated walls and hearth. Her desk is spotless, and her bookshelves overflowing with tomes and scrolls, gifts from White Harbor, Barrowton, Skagos and Riverrun, even first editions from the new Citadel established at Highgarden. 

Jeyne reorganizes Sansa’s correspondence; she has two new letters, one from Arya, visiting Bear Island and no doubt sailing and swimming in this spate of warm weather for the North, and one from Bran, from his keep near Sea Dragon Point, where the first wargs were born and buried. 

She looks up at the sound of footfall in the hall, and then the mahogany door swings open as Sansa walks in, her raven-plumed Tully blue hat under her arm, perfectly complementing the rich red and grey of her velvet riding habit. The door softly closes behind her. Her eyes twinkle in the afternoon light, as brilliantly blue at twenty as they were at ten. 

“Mistress Poole,” she says, warmly. “How has Winterfell fared in my absence?” She sets her hat down on the side table, where carved woods race across the top-board.

“Very well, my lady,” Jeyne says, “but I fear I’ve fared terribly.” She comes out from behind Sansa’s desk, her hands folded behind her back, and then the distance between them is so small, and she can still smell the woodsmoke of the winter town in Sansa’s thick plait, flowing down her back.

“We must rectify this at once,” Sansa kisses her on one cheek, then another, and draws back, her hands slender and graceful on Jeyne’s shoulders. A smirk is playing on her lips, the same smirk that used to thrill Jeyne so many years ago, promising excitement and intrigue and lovely secrets.

“Oh, we must,” Jeyne says, pulling her close, her arms around Sansa’s long neck, and rises up on her tiptoes to kiss her passionately on the lips, grinning when Sansa melts into the kiss with a sigh of relief.


	9. Fierce kiss that ends with a bite (Asha/Qarl)

#15 - Asha/Qarl

Asha had always thought him shy and sweet around women, Qarl, for all his quiet ways and almost gentle mannerisms, except in a fight- God, he is like a torrent in a fight, she’s never met someone so young and so skilled with a longsword, and to watch him slash through men without so much as batting an eye is sweet indeed- but he proves her wrong at the end of their first kiss, when he not only takes the peach slice from her lips, but bites down, hard. 

She grins against his mouth, and he takes that as as encouragement to put his hands on her hips.

They both draw back slightly. Asha feels at her lower lip, tastes copper. “Qarl,” she says, with mock reproach. “You’ve drawn blood from your captain. Is this how you would repay her, for sharing in her bounty?”

He smirks, pulls her flush against him, and licks it away with a deft swipe of his tongue, pink as a kitten’s, as a girl’s, she thinks. His sandy blonde hair hangs long and tickles her face. She likes that he is beardless. It draws more attention to his perfect mouth and velvet soft lips. “Tell me when I’ve tended enough to your wound,” he murmurs. “I’d hate to leave you in a vulnerable state.”

“Such a reader,” she teases. “What romance did you pick that up from?”

“This one.” His hand snakes behind one of her thighs, lifting her off-balance so she has to cling to him as they topple backward onto the bunk. He pinches the back of her leg playfully; it tickles more than it hurts. 

She laughs, loud and freely, as he shakes his bangs out of his eyes, so warm and gentle a brown. “I found something I like better than peaches,” he admits, as she clambers atop him, and he runs his fingers up her belly and chest, to her collarbone.

“Tell me,” Asha breathes. “What’s your appetite for now, Maid?”

He elects to show her instead.


	10. Kiss pressed atop the head (Donella/Harrion)

#43 - Harrion/Donella

“She’s too young,” Nell says tightly, hands rooted into her skirts, bundled in her lap. “You should be going with her.”

She can hear him suppress a sigh. “She is three-and-ten, Donella. Were she a boy, she’d be more than old enough to squire by now. I do not think a peaceful trip to White Harbor for three moons’ is a great cause for concern.”

Nell bites back a snappish retort, afraid she will grow distracted and miss the moment when Lysara’s small figure on horseback disappears into the horizon. It’s a fine, crisp, cool autumn morning and the grass is still green and dewy, the wind gentle for once, but she cannot help the fear that crawls up in her chest. “She will push herself too hard to make good time and catch a chill. I know she will. She would listen to you, if were with her-,”

“If I go riding after her now, she will be humiliated,” Harry says firmly. “She will be of her majority in three years. Naturally she wants to assert herself. She is in good health and a fine rider. We have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, now you want her to assert herself,” Nell mutters. “That was not the tune you sung last week, when she fought with you over the wildling delegation for half the day.”

He stiffens beside her, then concedes, “It is a mark of her good education. She has been taught to argue, to debate. I would only rather she contain her temper-,”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Nell huffs. “She lets herself lose her temper with you because she trusts you will not hold it against her. That is how you know you have her respect.”

At the peak of the hill, Lysara reins up her silver-grey gelding to wave to them. One of the bannermen blows a horn. Nell forces herself to calmly raise her hand in response. Harry leans over and presses a kiss atop her head, almost furtively. She huffs again, but after the riders have vanished into the distance, takes his hand in hers for a moment, before they turn their steeds back to Winterfell.


	11. Butterfly kisses (Arya & Jon)

#13 - Jon & Arya

He had his official name day gifts at breakfast this morning, a new saddle and a painted leather scabbard for his hunting knife, as well as two new books from White Harbor. But now the day has gone on like any other, and Robb is the one holding court with Father, while Jon walks around the godswood, kicking at leaves on the ground, wondering why twelve does not feel very much different than eleven. He thought twelve would feel more like a man. Mostly he just feels the same.

A twig cracks nearby, and he looks up and around, wondering if is Theon and some village girl, or one of the maids, although he doubts even Theon is so bold as to sneak one of his conquests into the godswood in the light of day. 

“SURPRISE!” Bran and Arya tumble out of a tree into a heap at his feet. Jon jumps backwards, embarrassed he did not hear any tell-tale giggles or childish whispers- what kind of almost-a-man gets ambushed by two little children of six and five? But there they are; the same height, with identical grins on their faces. Were it not for Arya’s Stark looks, so similar to Jon’s, she and Bran could be twins, they are always up to all kinds of mischief, the sort Jon swore off at ten, judging himself far too old for pranks and sports.

Between the two of them, they have wrangled a small spice cake from the kitchens, still in its tray. It’s gone cold long ago, but they thrust it at him, twigs in their hair, red in their faces, and he sits down near the hot springs to eat it with them as they swipe handfuls. He suspects this was mostly an excuse to sneak a treat with a threadbare reason for doing so, but he is also touched that, young as they are, they went out of their way to surprise him.

“It was my idea,” Arya brags, in between crumbly mouthfuls.

“Was not,” Bran scowls. “You always lie and say it was your idea-,”

“Not when the idea is dumb! You wanted to give him one of your toys! That’s not a real gift, Bran!”

“Is too!”

Jon swallows his piece of cake, reaches over, and ruffles both their hair, grinning. “Thank you for my real gift, whoever thought of it first.”

In retaliation, both tackle him to the ground, the cake forgotten, Bran tickling at his ribs as he laughs and tries to shove them off, Arya peppering his cheeks with butterfly kisses, like one of the kennel puppies.


	12. Kisses seated in the lap (Sansa/Harrold)

#27 - Sansa/Harrold

Sansa has been wed to Harry for fifteen years now, and can confidently say that in some ways, he is still a boy at heart. He lies between her legs, his head lolling back against her chest, some of the sandy blond shot through with silvery white that will one day, she thinks, turn as completely white as Jon Arryn’s hair in the portrait of him from the Rebellion, hanging in the Eyrie’s solar.

One day, too, the lines of his face will catch up with the horrific scarring left behind from the War for the Dawn; the ear he lost to frostbite, the hard ridge of skin from under his right eye to across his lips from the slash to the face he took. 

The Young Falcon did not emerge from the final battles with all his resplendent plumage intact. He has not been a handsome man for some time. He has, however, been a better man for some time, and if that is the price to be paid, she thinks they were both glad to pay it. 

She had never thought to love him, but she thinks she could call it akin to that now, perhaps not the wholly passionate, overcome with romance love she envisioned as a young girl, but something slower and steadier and at last, finally, a love she does not feel means to strip her bare and take and take from her. A love she is not sorry to receive. 

She ghosts kisses along his brow, roots her fingers in her hair. She is not free from age either; she looks in the mirror and sees her mother, most days, albeit with a slightly longer face and nose, hair a shade too light and a little too curly. She sees a ghost, and she welcomes it. The dead no longer hold much terror for her, only a strange sort of comfort. 

She thinks of how she used to watch her parents hold hands under the table, or go for long walks in the godswood, as her kisses reach the bridge of Harry’s nose, broken in another battle and healed back crooked. She likes it all the same.

He is humming some song under her breath, the same one she was humming to Catelyn in her cradle earlier. She smiles a little to hear it, and whispers the words in his ears as he stretches back against her, the light from the hearth bathing them both as the wind moans softly outside the shuttered windows.


	13. Kisses and whispered words of love (Sansa/Jeyne)

#31 - Sansa/Jeyne

“I love you,” Jeyne murmurs, as she breaks free of Sansa’s kiss, but leaves their heads bent together as they huddle under the heart tree. Here they would exchange secrets and gossip in full view of the gods, ignorant of any offense they might have caused to this sacred place. Now they honor it, albeit in an unusual way, though she thinks it must have seen kisses before, and cannot believe that the old gods revile love, that they would take umbrage to see two daughters of Winterfell share this.

“I love you,” Sansa’s blue eyes trace her face. “I love your hair,” she runs her hand through Jeyne’s dark brown locks, then kisses the tip of her scarred nose. “I love your skin.” Her hand traces down Jeyne’s fur-lined surcoat, blue and white. “I love the way you dance, and the way you walk, and the way you ride-,”

Jeyne has known Sansa for near twenty years, and will never tire of hearing this. “I love the way you play the poet,” she whispers back, “particularly when it is for me.”

“Play the poet?” Sansa’s rosy lips part on mock offense. “I am published thrice over, Mistress Poole. They read my work from Barrowtown to Widow’s Watch.”

“Yes,” Jeyne giggles. “Lady Winter’s modest rhymes and enchantments of word.”

“Unlike me,” Sansa kisses her again, running her hand again through Jeyne’s silken hair, “you don’t need a pen and paper to be enchanting.”

That is a bald faced lie, but it does not mean Jeyne cannot grin and blush to hear it, and it does not mean she cannot pull Sansa closer, until she is not sure whose limbs are whose, and all she knows is the lemon-sweetness of Sansa’s kiss and the rough bark of the trunk at her back, the breeze tugging at their skirts and cloaks.


	14. Kissing tears from the face (Maegor/Aemma)

#39 - Maegor/Aemma

She is surprised to wake to find him weeping, and listens with perverse curiosity for a few moments before he realizes she has stirred. The pain between her legs is a dull stab, and the bed smells like blood and poppies, but at least she can feel some hunger growling in her belly, and a dryness and urge to drink from her mouth. Those seem like good signs of her improving health.

Wordlessly, he offers her water and watches intently as she gulps it down, no dainty sips her, and it trickles icy mountain cold down her chin and onto her shift. Someone has changed her clothes. This is not the one she was wearing when she went into labor.

“The babes are well?” she asks, sharply, when she can speak. They must be, she knows they must be, they were born big and strong, even for twins, and that is what caused all the nasty bleeding-

He nods, jerkily.

Aemma lets herself relax minutely. “Good. They’re with the nurse? That’s one solace for me, then.” She smiles wanly. “You know I always hated to have a child on the teat.”

He grips her hands in his, and she sees his violet eyes are red-rimmed and hollow. “How can you jape,” he all but growls, though it holds no fear or intimidation for her, “when I almost lost you?”

“I am right here,” she says, “never fear, you could not escape me that easily, my prince.”

He looks away from her as it compose himself. “Never again,” he says, thickly, after a moment. “No more. I cannot- had you- if you’d not returned to me, I would have…”

“Now you know how I felt, seeing you off to war,” she cannot help but point out. “Where is my reward for a battle well-fought? Have you nothing for me?”

He turns back to her, sees she is crying a little herself, because as brave a face she put on when he was shouting at the maester and midwives who would not let him in the room, she was terrified herself, terrified to leave him with their children. She knows they would be alright- Maegor is a wonderful father, and her family would never let them feel alone- but she is still selfish at heart, and could not bare to miss out on the decades to come. When he kisses her tears from her cheeks, she wipes away his with a trembling thumb, and lets herself fall into him, drinking in his scent, nestling her face in his hair.


	15. Kissing tears from the face (Lily/Sirius)

#39 - Sirius/Lily

Sirius Black does not find a quiet, desolate corner of the labyrinthine school library to cry in. It’s just not done. First of all, he’s a Black. Second of all, he’s an utter twat with an ego nearly as big a Potter’s. Third of all, god damn it, she can’t just walk on by, and it’s not because they’re friends (they are most certainly not) and it’s not because she is overcome with pity for him, the poor pureblood heir who thinks because he’s got one halfblood friend he should be up for some sort of peace prize, but it’s because while he is a prick, a cad, and often an all-around bastard, he is not so far gone that she can countenance leaving him alone like this.

Besides, she’s really in no rush to start her prefect patrol, they’ve paired her up with Macmillan, talk about a bore. Ugh. 

Neither of them says a word, although he stiffens slightly as she slides down the bookcase to sit beside him on the dusty floor, her skirt rumpled, her bookbag in her lap, scrutinizing his red, blotchy face and the way he keeps furiously swiping at his Roman nose. At least he doesn’t look half as handsome when he’s crying. It makes him a little more likable; just another snotty, snivelly teenager, not some Byronic hero shedding a lone, masculine tear as he stares off into the heath. 

“So,” he finally says, hoarsely, when he’s composed himself. “What page of the school paper is this going on?”

“Alright, have a care,” she snaps, unsurprised she’s already peeved with him. “I’m not here for an angle for the bloody paper, Black. I’m trying to be decent, which is a damn sight more than you’d be, if you came across someone crying in the library!”

“Harsh as ever, Evans,” he mutters.

“Please,” she snorts. “Davey Perkins whimpers once in Defence Against the Dark Arts in third year, and you and your pathetic mates imitate him for the next three months.” She strikes up a low, mocking whine, “D-D-Daveyyyyyy, are you cryingggg? Shall we owl for Mummmmy?”

He winces. “Alright. Point taken. I’m a fucking hypocrite. I’ll send Davey flowers and a note of apology before we graduate. Merlin.”

That does get a soft chuckle out of her. Sirius glances over at her as though he’d never seen her before, which she supposes makes sense. When James is being his usual idiot self, Sirius is usually looking at him, smirking, not at the target of James’ attention. 

“Don’t even know why I was crying,” he says. “Thought I got that out of my system a decade ago. Mother like mine, you tend to go through tears quickly.” He’s speaking in that quick, low, deprecating tone that most boys use when they don’t want to sound weak or emotional.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a good cry,” Lily says, somewhat awkwardly nudging him with her elbow. “Bet you feel loads better now, though, yeah?”

He’s silent for a moment, then pushes some of his thick black hair behind a reddened ear, though the flush in his face is already fading. “Yeah.” He glances back at her with an odd sort of half-smile. “Thanks.”

To her utter dismay, her own face heats up. Christ. No. Abort. She is not about to fall for the trademarked Look this late in the match. She’s made it through five years of schooling without feeling an inkling for him beyond irritation and occasionally genuine fury. Not now! But there’s nothing smug, no ‘caught you out, Evans, guess you’re not immune after all’ to his searching look, just genuine gratitude and a softness she did not think was possible from any member of his fucked up purist family, even if he’s the ‘good egg’ of the bunch.

Well, in for a penny- She kisses him swiftly on the cheek, teasingly, she tells herself, she’s just messing around, and tries to ignore the taste of his tears on her lips as she clambers to her feet. He stares after her, as if she’d seen him off with a slap instead. “Well,” Lily draws it out too long. “Got to start my patrol. Prefect rubbish. You know.” She waves haltingly, and ignores his muffled exclamation after her as she walks away, far too quickly.


	16. Morning kisses (Donella/Robb)

#11 - Donella/Robb

She doesn’t have to open her eyes to roll into him, and she doesn’t have to open her eyes to entwine her legs with his, and she doesn’t have to open her eyes to palm her way up his chest and then clumsily collide her mouth with his. Their teeth clack together, but she doesn’t mind. He brushes his tongue across her lips, she sighs in amusement into his, and then muffles her chuckle in his cheek as he pulls her atop him. Only then does Nell open her eyes. His are very blue- she thinks they are always bluest in the morning light- and crusted with sleep. She’s sure hers are much the same. “Good morning,” she whispers.

“Good morning,” he murmurs back, smiling. “How did you sleep?”

“Oh, I was exhausted,” she lays her head down on her chest. “I had the most tiring dream.”

“Did you?” He strokes at her hair, tugging loose her braid, even as she continues.

“Yes. I was on a hunt. Very fast-paced, you see.”

“What were you hunting?”

“Guess,” she raises her head again to grin at him.

He grunts in amusement. “You caught me. Seems a little unfair, when the quarry lies down for bed beside you every night.”

“Oh dear. Perhaps His Grace should make an edict against it. Ban me from your bedchamber when my blood is up.” She yawns, already hungry for breakfast. The babe makes her want to eat all the time, she thinks. 

“No,” he says. “In fact, I forbid it. You must sleep beside me for the rest of your life. And catch me every night in your dreams.”

“Gods, now he’s a poet,” she muses. 

It’s his turn to grin toothily at her. “Give me something to write verse about, then.”

“I suppose.” She hovers over him on her elbows, brushing her lips with his until he loses patience and rolls her over, squealing and giggling.


	17. Kiss paired with a tight hug (Donella/Robb)

#47 - Donella/Robb

“They’re coming,” Nell says, guardedly. Robb stands a little taller, raises his chin, tries to look regal, she thinks. She is angry with him, but she cannot show it, because he is about to be her king. She feels sick. Her stomach has been churning since dawn. This is not what she wanted. She does not even think it is what he wanted. But it is a little too late to back out now. She can hear the distant squeal of the godswood gate. Birds chirp merrily nearby, oblivious to their distress. She wants to put an arrow in every single one, knock them from their nests.

“Thank you,” he says, as has become his habit, she thinks, of thanking her for not really doing anything at all. She wishes it annoyed more than it actually does. “For- I know this is… not what…” he trails off, exhales. “I will do my best,” he says resolutely, “to prove to you I am worthy of it. The crown. And all the rest. You know that, don’t you? Nell?”

For a moment she does not reply, then turns on her heel and embraces him swift, hard, so hard she can tell she knocked some of the breath out of his chest. But then his arms constrict around her, and he gives a comforting squeeze, pressing a kiss to her lips. They’ve barely been wed two moons, and it still makes her flush red as a cherry. They break apart in time to compose themselves as if they were not just acting like nervous, giddy children. He squares his shoulders. She arranges her face in a composed, neutral expression. The birds continue to sing, maddeningly.

Thank you, she thinks, like a fool. For what? Making her a queen? But she knows that is not it at all.


	18. Deep kisses, hands tangled in hair (Sansa/Mya)

#24 - Sansa/Mya

Mya stomps in trailing a path of ice and slush in her wake, to Sansa’s dismay, but she can’t stir much from her place by the fire when she’s just got Jon to sleep. The babe named for Jon Arryn and her brother has a shock of auburn hair, to no one’s surprise, but she thinks his eyes will stay a lighter shade of blue than her own, and he has his father’s hawkish nose, disconcertingly big on a toddler’s face. Sansa listens to his small heartbeat thudding against her own, and wonders if this is how her mother felt, holding Robb. She is older now than her mother was then: nineteen. It feels strange. Robb and Jon never lived to see nineteen. But Arya and Bran and Rickon will. She is certain of that. 

Mya mops through her dark hair with one hand, then holds her arms out to take Jon from Sansa. After a moment’s hesitation, praying he does not wake, Sansa hands her son over, and Mya carefully lays him in his little cot in the corner; he’s already too big for his cradle. After arranging the silvery-blue quilt over him, she turns back to Sansa, the firelight illuminating her square jaw and the sheer depth of her dark eyes, like midnight velvet, Sansa thinks. Mya may not be beautiful, but she is something more than that, handsome and striking and compelling in her effortless grace and easy physicality. 

Sansa stands up, sliding her smaller hand into Mya’s, and for a moment they just lean together, as if Mya were trying to draw in some of her flushed warmth. Then Sansa moves her hands up, combing them through Mya’s shaggy black hair, pushing her overgrown bangs from her eyes. Mya grins broadly at her, then nips at her ear. Sansa pulls her close, into a deep kiss, closing her eyes in relief as Mya’s hands root in her own hair, mussing her braids. She does not care. She does not care in the least.


	19. Kiss pressed atop the head (Maegor/Aemma)

#43 - Maegor/Aemma

Aemma waits until the rest of the council has left, and the solar is quiet and still once more, not even a fire in the hearth in this summer heat. She has not spent any great length of time in King’s Landing since she was a girl, and now, past fifty as she is, that seems a lifetime ago. There will be no great balls nor tourneys for some time, they’ve too much work to do; her childhood self would be distraught at the thought. 

When she puts her hands on the back of Maegor’s high back chair, she can see the lines and spots of age clearer than ever before in the sunlight pouring in through the glass doors leading out onto the balcony overlooking the city.

He sighs, heavily; an old man’s sigh, she thinks fondly, although he has borne aging with far more grace than her, his silver-gold hair fading to white, his beard only a little darker. The lines around his eyes bring out their beauty, she thinks, rather than degrade it.

He glances up at her grimly; they do not need to speak, after so long in a marriage. Aemma thinks, if anything, she has grown quieter as she’s aged, simply feeling less of a need to say what is on her mind with every passing year. But he has always been able to read her well. He leans up and grips her hand in his. 

Aemma bends her head and presses a kiss atop his hair, and they stay like that for a few aching moments, bent into one another, as if to wish all this away, the trappings of the crown, the ruined city outside their doors, the gossip and speculation of the keep. It is not what either of them wanted, or at least not the way they’d envisioned it. But she knows they will endure it; what other choice is there?


	20. Kisses that trail down the jaw and neck (Jon/Daenerys)

#50 - Jon/Daenerys

His kisses sting. Dany frowns, reorients herself, drapes her arms over his shoulders, and examines his long face closely. “You need to shave,” she informs him. “That, or grow it out. I will not be kissed by a man with stubble sharp as knives.” Jon seems rather disappointed by this interruption, but runs a hand along his jawline. 

“I thought it looked better like this.” He sounds almost wounded.

Daenerys resists the urge to roll her eyes. No doubt he thinks the stubble makes him look quite the part of the hardened and dashing ex-Lord Commander, with his scarred face, dark hair pulled back into a wildling’s knot at the base of his scalp, and his shadowed jaw. And she cannot lie and say it has no effect on her, but Jon is cocky enough that she does not think he needs the additional assurance that she finds him handsome. He carries himself with the sort of pleasantly surprised air of a man who was never called handsome until he reached a certain age, and though he will never admit, obviously enjoys hearing it. 

Well, she did always like the arrogant ones, she will freely admit. “Grow the beard,” she says, “or shave it off, Jon Snow.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Is that a command?”

“Shall I make it one?” Dany asks with mock sweetness- how they butted heads when they first met, she is still not sure how she stopped wanting to shake him silly long enough to kiss him, nevermind- He is kissing along her jaw now, then down her neck, and her thoughts trail away, even as she huffs in amusement and tries to wriggle away from the tickling sharpness of his chin. In retaliation, she pulls out his knot of hair, and tugs hard until he reaches the spot just above her collarbone that she likes best.


	21. Tentative kisses in the dark (Tom/Amy)

#44 - Tom/Amy

He kisses so shyly in the dark that she knows he is doing it on purpose. Tom has never been shy a day in his life. Hesitant, yes, reserved, yes, cautious, almost always- but here, up on this hill in the middle of the countryside, overlooking the darkened village below, she knows he is just trying to goad her, or lull her into a false sense of security. “Stop it,” she mutters, when he presses a particularly, infuriatingly chaste one to her lips, as if they were five years old and playing at being married. He draws back, pale face a mask of wide-eyed, innocent apology.

“Stop what?” he whispers. “Am I hurting you?”

Amy barely restrains a sneer. “You know damn well what you’re doing.”

He kisses her on the cheek, barely an inch from the corner of her mouth, which feels like it’s burning and tingling. “You should tell me if you don’t like it.” 

“I am, you idiot,” she snaps, and gives him a little shove.

Something flashes in his eyes. There he is. He’s never been able to play nice for longer than ten minutes, she should know, after a childhood together. He puts one hand round the back of her neck as if to pinion her in place, like a butterfly stuck through with a tack. Amy surges forward instead, mouth crashing against his, and smiles against it when he drops the chivalrous act and locks his other arm around her waist, holding her still as they struggle silently against each other, fighting for who gets to control the kiss. She wins, draws back slightly, breathless, then kisses him sweetly, modestly, on the lips, no tongue, the barest brush. 

“Am I hurting you?” she mutters. He all but snaps his teeth at her in response, like a dog on a chain. She tries to wriggle out of his grip, then lets out a shout of laughter when he rolls them over instead to straddle her in the long grass, pinning her wrists to the ground and attacking her neck while her feet kick furiously under him and she half-closes her eyes in triumph.


	22. Cold hands and kisses (Donella/Robb)

#17 - Donella/Robb

He inhales quickly when she snakes her cold hands up his shirt, then wrenches them back out, holding her wrists together with one hand as she laughs and tries to pulls away. “That,” he says, clambering atop her so she cannot roll away from him to the other side of the bed, “was terrible. How slow does your blood move? They’re like ice.”

“I thought the Starks were supposed to be- Robb!- good at enduring- wait, wait- the brutal cold of winter-,” it ends in a half-whine as he kisses her neck, and she smiles up at him, shaking loose hair out of her eyes with a jerk of her head, since she still can’t move her hands. “Or was that just another lie?”

“Oh, so it’s treason, then,” he mutters, playing with the neckline of her shift. His hands are nowhere near as frigid as her own, almost too hot, in fact. She tries to wriggle away when he puts one down her shift, but there’s nowhere to go, and she gasps aloud when his fingers skim along her ribs. 

“Robb, that tickles!”

“Oh, does it?”

“Yes- it does!” she breaks off into a high stream of laughter, then hears someone moving through the corridor outside their bedchamber door and clamps her mouth shut, glaring up at him. He retracts the offending hand, though not before it passes over her breasts, and doesn’t seem very apologetic. “Someone might hear,” she hisses.

“Gods, what will we do?” he murmurs with no small amount of sarcasm. “Someone might have heard me attending to my wife! The horror!”

She wrinkles her nose at him, and then, when he releases her wrists, tugs him down vengefully by the hair to kiss him again. He flops down beside her, though he keeps one arm slung over her hips, and tries to warm her hands by kissing them, next, finger by finger.


	23. Kisses on tiptoes (Argella/Ellyn)

#48 - Argella/Ellyn

Argella’s latest growth spurt has put her at an entire head taller than Ellyn, something she’s been endlessly smug about. Septa says a woman bragging about her height is both unladylike and very crude, and that Argella should focus on making sure that she still carries herself with grace and dignity, rather than lumbering around like an aurochs or racing horses through the Rainwood. Ellyn says Septa smells of mothballs, but Ellyn is also annoyed by their new disparity in heights, particularly when it means that in order to kiss Argella she must rise all the way up on her tip-toes. Sometimes Argella likes to make her wait, suspended in time, except when Ellyn gets angry and reaches up to yank, hard, on her ear. 

“You might be small,” Argella says, scowling down at her, “but you can be very annoying. Like a mite.”

“Mites bite,” Ellyn warns her, eyes narrowed. “So I’d think twice-,”

Argella kisses her anyways, bending down, and to her sweet-natured credit, Ellyn does not bite her, although she does wrap her arms around Argella’s neck so that when she straightens back up, Ellyn is hanging off her for a moment before letting go. Argella much prefers her to any of the heavy, onerous necklaces Mother always has her trying on, usually rubies and garnets so that they might court the Targaryens’ favor when next they visit court. Argella likes how they make her look a queen, but she dislikes being parted from Ellyn, and she should much rather wear raven’s feathers in her hair for love of House Morrigen, rather than a net of metallic scales, confining her heavy curls.

“I love you, mite,” she says to Ellyn, smirking.

“I love you too, aurochs,” Ellyn retorts, and this time Argella sits down on the stone bench so they might properly kiss, without fear of their difference in height getting in the way.


	24. Kiss paired with a tight hug (Ned/Robarra)

#47 - Ned/Robarra

Ned’s not sure what he was expecting from this annual visit to Storm’s End, but it was not Stannis’ wild sister nearly knocking him off the feet with the force of her hug, before planting a kiss on his cheek that he knows they both will pretend is sisterly. She is promised to another, and not just another, but the crown prince. It is dishonorable to be carrying on with this kind of behavior, even if he has always been respectful and kept a proper distance between them. 

He wishes he could blame her for all of it, brazen Barra and her willful ways, but he would be lying to himself if he said he felt nothing but brotherly affection for her, that it was simply friendship, nothing more. That makes him just as bad as her, he would wager. 

He keeps his arms on her shoulders for only a moment as he sets her back down, not that she had very far to go; she is of a height with him, after all, and far from some slender, willowy made, is built near as solidly as the rest of her family. Stannis glowers, though mostly at his sister. “You should refrain from disgracing yourself with that sort of display,” he informs Robarra sharply. “You are near a woman grown.”

“And you are still near a toddling boy,” she shoots back, then holds out her arms. “What, no embrace for your favorite sister?”

“You are my only sister,” he corrects, but stiffly obeys. 

“Yes, Stannis, that was the jape,” she rolls her eyes, then ruffles his coal black hair. Stannis jerks away, scowling. 

“Robarra. Should you not be assisting Mother? Her daughter should not be in the stables just before a feast. And you’ve got mud on your hem. Father will say-,”

Robarra links her arm with Ned’s, and he throws an apologetic look back at Stannis, who stalks after them, still determined to make his flippant sister see sense.


	25. Kiss on the back of the hand (Sansa/Tommen)

#8 - Sansa/Tommen

Sometimes Sansa looks at him, the little boy she married what seems like two lifetimes ago, now a man grown as much as she is a woman grown, broad-shouldered and bearded, thick around the middle as his uncle Kevan was, but still strong and hardy enough to be a menace in a melee, mace in hand, and sees, despite her best efforts, a terrible glimpse of Cersei or Joffrey, in those bright green eyes, in the turn of his mouth, in his smooth brow. Then it is gone, and her is hers alone again, not the product of his family but his own man, her husband, and the grasp of the dead falls away.

He sees her scrutinizing him, smiles as warmly and honestly at her as he always has, and presses a kiss to the back of her hand, now smaller than his. 

His kiss is as gentle as his look. There is some black mixed in with his beard, like Tyrion’s hair once was. She smiles back at him, freely and without pretense, and they resume their walk together through the godswood, her head resting on his shoulder, feeling the summer sun beat down through the grove of trees to crown their heads with light. 

She feels sometimes she is still too reserved and cool in her affections with him, and that she ought to tell him more often how much she does love him, how much she does respect him, not because of family name or title but because of who he is, who he has always been, in spite of the cruelty and spite around him. 

But there will be time enough for that later. 

For now, their comfortable silence is enough. When he whistles softly under his breath, it is as sweet as any handsome singer’s song, and she squeezes his arm, smiling into the fabric of his sleeve.


	26. Hello kiss given without thinking (Ned/Catelyn)

#10 - Ned/Cat

He walks into the nursery and kisses her without even thinking about it, it seems to her, and Catelyn feels a thrill of pleasure and strange pride in her chest. A year ago they were strangers, and now he kisses her so sweetly and casually, one would think they’d known each other all their lives. She glances up at him, beaming, as Robb nurses hungrily in her lap, though he stops when he takes notice of his father, breaking into babbles, even with milk across his mouth and chin. Catelyn wipes it away with a rag, then leans back in her seat, tired, as Ned sets their son on his hip. 

She has been praying that Robb would take on more of Ned’s look as he ages, that his hair would darken from auburn to a true brown, that his face would become longer and sharper, but as Ned spins Robb around and smiles and chats with the cheering toddler, some of those worries seem a little less painful, and more like silly concerns. Ned loves him. He loves their son and he loves her. She bites her lower lip for a moment, as if to catch the last of his kiss and hold it in her mouth, then smiles all the wider when Robb reaches for her again. “He knows where his loyalties lie,” Ned chuckles.

“Just wait a few years,” Catelyn says, “and he will want nothing to do with me, and follow you around all day, wooden sword in hand.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he replies, taking her hand in his. “He’s too much like his father.”

Catelyn huffs a laugh, and then, as Robb returns to nursing, strokes his auburn curls just as Ned strokes hers, brushing her hair back from her face with a tenderness that takes her breath away.


	27. Accidental brush of the lips (Sansa/Daenerys)

#4 - Sansa/Daenerys

Sansa does not know what she was thinking, had meant for it to be a friendly, affectionate kiss goodnight, the sweet sort of one she would watch Margaery exchange with her cousins, the sort of one Arya might give her before trudging off to sleep, yawning loudly. She certainly did not mean for their lips to meet, and she knows she is scarlet as she pulls away, avoiding Daenerys’ violet gaze. They are friends- she should hope they are friends- but they have not known each other long enough for such a thing to be laughed off as the simple result of tiredness and a clumsy movement. Sansa falls silent, tongue-tied in a way she very much dislikes, a way she never wanted to feel again.

Daenerys’ fingers brush her cheek. Sansa looks back up again. “You give wonderful kisses,” Daenerys says, soberly, “even when you don’t mean to. I shall treasure it, my lady.”

There is a strange lump in Sansa’s throat. She swallows, nods- then kisses Daenerys again, with real intent this time, and feels her slot her arms around Sansa’s waist, moving up on her tiptoes to fully return the kiss. They back into a shimmering tapestry with muffled sighs and chuckles, then break apart, breathless. “You taste like lemoncakes,” Sansa tells her, softly. “And honey.”

Daenerys nods, then takes Sansa’s hand in hers as if to examine it wonderingly. “I could not say what you taste like. But I think I might name it, given more time.”

Sansa curls their fingers together, and invites her into another kiss with a parting of her lips. Lemoncakes and honey and peaches, she decides. She does not know what else could be so sweet, other than the chiming of the bells in Daenerys’ hair with every movement of her head.


	28. Desperate kiss wound around each other (Rhaena/Elissa)

#14 - Rhaena/Elissa

When Rhaena lands at Storm’s End, bedraggled, soaked to the skin, Aerea clinging to her neck and Blackfyre strapped to her back, it is not her mother nor her siblings whom she sees first, who she runs to, but Elissa, Elisa who comes tearing across the courtyard, the wind whipping her flaxen blonde hair into a torrent, her blue eyes alight with fire as they collide. Rhaena cannot even hear what she is saying over the sounds of the wind and the rain, and Aerea is sobbing loudly, but none of it matters, it does not matter, all that matters is Elissa’s warm mouth on hers, Elissa’s arms around her, Elissa’s breath on her neck. 

They nearly topple over, slipping on the wet stones, but do not let go, do not break apart will not. Rhaena never wants this moment to end. For a year her life has been naught but misery, and all she had to console herself with was her memories of Elissa. Now the memories fade in the overwhelming presence of the real thing.

Finally Elissa stops kissing her in order to gasp out, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Rhaena shakes her head, tears in her eyes. “You thought wrong. Did you think I would sit idly by, while the rest of the realm went to war?”

“Foolish of me,” Elissa laughs waveringly, then presses her slick forehead to Rhaena’s, and Rhaena breathes her in, one long, rasping breath. Then Elissa kisses Aerea’s head, and takes her from Rhaena, tucking her hand into hers. “Come on. You have to get out of these wet clothes before you catch your death out here. Your mother is waiting for you; Bronzegate saw you flying and sent word ahead.”

Rhaena nods, wiping at her nose and mouth, and walks towards the warmth of the inner keep with Elissa, hand in hand.


	29. Kisses on tiptoes (Maegor/Aemma)

#48 - Aemma/Maegor

When he crowns her queen of love and beauty she is eighteen and he nineteen, the first tourney he has ever won, and the stands are so high that she has to all but straddle the barrier, while he stands up in the stirrups, legs locked, to reach her mouth with his, the crown of blue and white roses in her hair. 

Aemma is so caught up in the triumph and ecstasy of the moment- like something from a song!- that she loses her balance and nearly topples into the dirt, had he not caught her and pulled her into the saddle in front of him. The crowd explodes with even more noise, her father looks exasperated, her stepmother shocked, but Aemma can do nothing but beam, even as she takes control of the reins and sets them off at a fast trot off the track. 

“Where are we going?” Maegor asks her, wrenching off his helm. His face is red with exertion and his hair slick with sweat, but in her mind he has never looked more handsome and alive and hers. She wishes there was another tourney tomorrow, so they might do this all over again. He wraps one arm around her middle to keep her from slipping off the horse, and she nestles into his embrace.

“Our tent,” she says, glancing back at him with a gleeful smile, and adjusts her skirts so they are not in danger of tearing, leaning into her mount’s mane as she presses them onward. “Unless you had any objections?”

As usual, he has nothing to say to that, and keeps mum for the rest of the ride, only to carry her from the saddle, ignoring her shrieks of laughter and the fact that her beautiful crown has, in fact, gone tumbling into the dirt, immediately forgotten in their haste to be alone together.


	30. Kiss interrupted (Sansa/Margaery)

#22 - Sansa/Margaery

Margaery, Willas reflects ruefully, has been absolutely terrible about keeping her appointments on time as of late. 

He does not think it’s a coincidence that this aligns conveniently with the visit of Lady Sansa, who arrived two days past. Her little sister has been near impossible to keep track of since then, flitting from place to place on the heels of her ‘dearest friend’, and while it does give him some smug amusement to see Margaery the one struggling to keep up, for once- he highly doubts the Lady Sansa was leading the charge when they were girls together at court, one a prisoner, the other bound up in gossamer strings controlled by their father and an unending cycle of boy-kings. 

But he would rather she actually show up to their council meetings on time. She’s beginning to make Garlan look punctual, and he’s the one who sometimes nods off into a nap in the middle of their discussions! He’d asked Sarella where she’d last seen his sister, and she’d given some vague, meandering response, which means that she knows exactly where but doesn’t think he needs to.

At last, he wrenches open the door to the green-paneled music room, only to find his sister and Lady Sansa entangled in one another, kissing feverishly in the velvet-cushioned window seat, the stained glass illuminating their hair, melded together, auburn to chestnut and back again. 

Sansa breaks away first, going bright pink at the sight of him, although she was quite pink already. 

Margaery just looks peeved. “Really, Willas!” she says crossly, although she is blushing a bit herself, and not quite making eye contact. “I know Mother raised you to knock before entering a room! You have the manners of an ox sometimes, truly!”

Willas leans his weight on his gilded cane, staring them down, then simply shakes his head and starts to walk away. 

“Close the door behind you, please!” Sansa calls after him, to his shock, and he can hear his sister giggling up a storm. Ungrateful brat, Marge is. A smile twitches at his lips all the same. He hasn’t heard her laugh like that in a very long time, not a polite titter but a full-bellied chuckle.


	31. Kiss pressed atop the head (Sansa/Quentyn)

#44 - Sansa/Quentyn

At night, the Water Gardens are not the cacophony of sound and light that he remembers from his early childhood, before he was sent to Yronwood, but a far more peaceful and solemn place. The fountains burble and flow, the birds chirp in the orange trees, the crickets sing, the breeze whispers through the shrubbery, but aside from that, all is still. 

She is still. 

Quentyn approaches cautiously. In the moonlight, her face is so pale, and looks longer than it does during the light of day, her hair darker as well, almost purpling brown. The Stark look, he thinks, wonders if he has the Martell look. Arianne says he looks just like Father. He’s not sure she’s ever meant that as a compliment. 

He sits down slowly beside her; she smiles briefly at him, and then they are quiet together. She’s two and half inches taller than him at eighteen, and he twenty three. He feels even older, sometimes. Wonders if it shows on his face, if it will line prematurely, as his father’s did. 

He thinks she would still be beautiful, ten, twenty, thirty years from now. He wonders if she cares, or if she has found her beauty not a useful tool as his sister has, but a burden she wishes she could be rid of, the source of unwanted attention and competing desires. Then he wonders if he’s a fool for thinking that. 

He kisses her softly, tentatively, on the cheek, hoping she does not pull away or jump to her feet, that she might like it. She seems to, but he draws back, waits, until she takes her hand in his, and pulls him closer again, wrapping a long arm around him. Her hair smells like citrus. Her fingers are longer than his, but just as warm. She kisses him back, and they both close their eyes like the children they have not been for a very, very long while now.


	32. Cleaning lips with a lick kiss (Donella/Harrion)

#37 - Donella/Harrion

There’s blood on his lips. Nell is used to that condition in a husband, only this time it is not a sign of death staved off, but death approaching. His face is alight with fever, and she can hear his breath rasping in his chest. For several hours now she has sat here, the picture of quiet dignity, a widow prepared to begin the process of mourning anew, his hand chastely gripped in hers, ever modest in her grief. Now they are alone. Now she lets herself feel, and what she feels is the sob clawing its way up her throat. She leans down and kisses away the blood, cleans it off with her tongue, neatly, then lies down beside him, barely an inch betwixt them. 

She doesn’t know if he even realizes she is here. She hopes he can feel someone holding his hand, at least, the warmth of another body beside him. He is so very hot. She leans her head against his, temple to temple, and thinks of everything she never said, the time she thought she would have, for grudges and rage and regrets and forgiveness. There is no time left now. She hums off-tune instead, some stupid song he must have heard in the nursery, same as her, they did not grow up so far apart, did they? And she closes her eyes and fights back her tears, tightens her grip on his clammy hand. Wishes his wounds were hers, absurd as it sounds. Wishes that once her physical pain matched what she feels on the inside. She should like to die fighting, as he will. She should like that luxury. 

She will miss him on the morrow, when he is gone. She knows that, too. He whispers something, but she cannot bring herself to look back at him, until he squeezes her hand, weakly. Then their eyes meet. He whispers it again, and she nods, mouth contorted in a pained grimace, nods again so he understands, and lies back down beside him.


	33. Awkward kiss after a first date (Jon/Satin)

#35 - Jon/Satin

Satin’s tour of Winterfell ends in the godswood. He watches Jon pause before the heart tree, his hands locked behind his back. It’s always odd, seeing someone in their childhood home. He has only known Jon the Lord Commander, Jon the man, the Jon who is only willing to smile when no one is looking, to laugh when he thinks they’re alone. This is a different side of him. For the first time he can see traces of the awkward, solemn, earnest boy he must once have been. Satin finds he likes that. Very much. He steps a little closer. “Your home is beautiful.”

Jon pauses, as if to point out that it has not been his home since he left for the Wall, no more than Oldtown has been Satin’s home for a very long time, but then just smiles, albeit stiffly. “Thank you. It hasn’t changed much since I last saw it.”

“Then that must be the beauty of it.” Satin shrugs. “You grow up in a city, things are always changing. Places, people. There one day, gone the next. Nothing ever stays.” No one ever stays. He moves past Jon, putting his gloved hand beside the weirwood’s grim face. “But this has. I like that.” He removes his hand, glances back at Jon, just before Jon’s lips touch his, slowly, uncertainly. Then he steps back, reddening. Satin likes the way his ears change color first. 

“Jon,” Satin says, slowly. “Your home is not the only beautiful thing before me.”

Jon looks away, sharply, then back at him, as if wondering if this is Satin’s idea of a jape. His lips part, but no sound emerges. Satin kisses him, hoping to provoke one. He does. A half-sigh, half-moan of relief or release. They break apart, staring at one another, then meet again, snow crunching underfoot and catching in their hats and hair, the weirwood whispering above them.


	34. Kiss interrupted (Arya/Edric)

#22 - Arya/Edric

Arya thought they’d be safe in the stables, but evidently not. Fortunately, they are both too preoccupied to care. 

She has been at Starfall a fortnight now, and while she’d only meant to stay a few weeks, now she thinks there is no harm in prolonging her visit. The North is at peace, Sansa and Bran can get along without her a little while longer, and besides, this is something of her grand tour, is it not, now that she’s sixteen? 

When she first saw Ned again, she’d felt awkward and ugly and nine years old, but only for a little while, and now, with him in the half-shadows of the stable, listening to the horses snuffle and footsteps draw closer, she feels beautiful and bold and strong enough to capture his mouth with hers, spur him to be faster, harder with his kisses, her hands rooted in his silvery blonde hair, which falls to his shoulders now, while hers, far from the cropped cut she sported last they met, reaches her waist. She loves her hair. She never wants it cut again, not as long as she lives. 

“My aunt,” he murmurs against her mouth, “she’ll-,”

She hadn’t thought it’d be his aunt, just a groom! Arya breaks apart from him, scowling, just as the door swings open. 

Allyria Dayne stares at them, unsurprised and unimpressed as Ned adjusts his high collar and Arya brushes off the front of her riding gown. Then she simply shakes her head, warns, “Watch yourself, Edric,” and turns on her heel, striding away, the afternoon sunlight glinting off her jet black ringlets, streaked with white blonde. 

Arya watches her go, then glances back at him. “She reminds me of my sister.”

“Everyone reminds you of your sister,” Ned groans, and kisses her again, smiling when she pushes him back, further into the shadows, with the teasing pads of her fingers.


	35. Unexpected, shocking kiss (Dana/Marianne)

#33 - Dana/Marianne

“She makes me so angry, sometimes,” Marianne grouses, as they round a twist in the gravel path leading through Riverrun’s godswood. “I don’t mean to gossip, truly, but she can be insufferable! Perfect Marissa! Marissa the snitch, more like it! No one can so much as chew their food the wrong way without her whispering about it to Queen Donella or Lady Catelyn- no offence, Dana…”

“None taken,” Dana says bemusedly, watching her intently. “I am neither.”

“Ha ha,” Marianne rolls her eyes, taking Dana’s hand in her own and giving it a warm squeeze. “Very funny.”

“I try,” Dana sighs, and then says, “I do know something that might cheer you, though.”

Marianne frowns. “What is it? Don’t tell me you’ve swiped a cake from the kitchens again, the cook will have our heads, he already thinks all Freys are thieves-,”

Dana pecks her on the lips instead. Marianne blinks, shocked, then feels a wave of regret as Dana’s hopeful, oddly tentative expression starts to crumble. She starts to explain- she usually likes nothing better than to talk, to think aloud- then thinks better of it, and kisses Dana back, flushing. “What a gift. I wonder why- why you did not give me one before.”

She had not dared to hope. In the moonlight, Danelle is so lovely, her dark brown hair turned raven black in the night, her eyes such a bright and fierce blue, her face so smooth. When she smiles, she all but glows. “Too much of a craven, I suppose.”

Marianne draws her closer, ignores her heart thudding in her chest. “Well. I think we might be brave together. If you like.”

Dana murmurs in agreement, then huffs a nervous laugh, and kisses her again. Marianne likes that very much, and they leave the path behind entirely, in favor of a more secluded place to exchange their hard-earned gifts.


	36. Kiss on the back of the hand (Lily/James)

#8 - James/Lily

“You need to relax,” Lily says, when he jumps up to pace for the fourth time in the past hour. “Really. It’s just a match, James.”

“Just a- have you lost your mind,” he hisses, pausing mid-loping stride, hand in front of him as if holding an invisible box, to once again lecture her about sports. “It’s the last match of the year! Our last year! Gryffindor versus Slytherin! And you want me to relax, Lil?! Did I tell you to relax the day before our Transfiguration NEWT, when you were going mad?”

“I was not going mad,” she mutters. “You’re so dramatic.”

“You threw a textbook at me! Two textbooks!”

“I missed. On purpose.”

He curls his lip at her in response. She curls hers back, then sighs and holds out her arms. “Come here.” Like a child, he does, sitting back down beside her with a muffled goans. Lily wraps her arms around him and rocks back and forth for a moment. “Alright. I get it. Quidditch means a lot to you. But even if you lose- which seems pretty unlikely, given your track record-,” she can quite literally feel his ego puffing his chest back up like a balloon, “what is the worst that could happen? We’re about to graduate. You’re not going pro.”

“I could go pro and you bloody well know it,” he mutters.

“Fine,” she says. “You could go pro, but you’re not, so-,”

“So, do you think I want to spend my last feast staring at green banners covering ever corner of the Great Hall? Listening to Peakes and Parkinson and Montague going on about their great victory, like I didn’t kick the shit out of them all season-,”

“James,” she says, louder. “Calm. Down. You know what you’re doing up there. So… do it. And stop worrying about what-ifs. Either you win, or you don’t. Your choice.”

“Wow,” he says. “This is surprising, coming from the girl who reads literature about the futility of choice in systems of oppression-,”

“Oh, shut the hell up,” she snorts, and kisses him on the back of the hand, more gently than he deserves, her lips brushing over a scar running across his knuckles from some failed prank or hex.


	37. Kiss with shared breath (Catelyn/Cersei)

#9 - Catelyn/Cersei

When the Tully girl stops kissing her and pauses, teeth worrying over her bottom, rosy pink lip, to ask, softly, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Cersei is so frustrated she thinks she could just about throttle her. In response, she grabs her by two fistfuls of her thick auburn hair and pulls her towards her like she’s manipulating a mummer’s puppet, only Catelyn refuses to be danced on the strings of her hair and plants her hands firmly across Cersei’s chest, pushing her back, down onto the bed, and straddling her. “Don’t pull my hair,” she says firmly, sternly, as if scolding a child.

Cersei sneers up at her. “Or what?”

Catelyn kisses the underside of her jaw. “You’ll see.”

“Show me,” Cersei says, impatient. “Come on, show me-,”

“You’ll see.” But now her kisses are fiercer, rougher, and Cersei rolls back her shoulders, smiling in pleasure, until they turn nipping.

“I thought you were a fish,” she complains, grabbing the back of Catelyn’s neck so she can properly kiss her back. “They don’t bite.”

“Yes, they do,” Catelyn scoffs, looking at Cersei like she’s a fool, albeit a beautiful one.

“You’ll see,” Cersei mocks her, although in truth, her voice is the higher of the two of them, and bites at her lips. “You shouldn’t start what you can’t finish.”

“Who said I was finished?” Catelyn tweaks her breast, earning a shocked gasp from Cersei- and then a happily infuriated swipe of her tongue across the other woman’s lips. Catelyn responds in kind, and they roll over, now Cersei on top, and she makes full use of it to wrench up Catelyn’s skirts, letting her hair hang between the like a veil, causing Catelyn to chuckle when it brushes against her neck and face, now as pink as her swollen lips.


	38. Deep kisses, hands tangled in hair (Ned/Catelyn)

#24 - Ned/Catelyn

The first time she dares to root her hands in hair while they kiss in bed, she worries he will jerk away, shocked at her gall, or retreat in displeasure, tell her a wife should not act so brazenly. But to her delight, if anything, he seems to like it even more than when just has his hands in hers- and gods know he loves her hair, he’s always playing with it, running his hands through it, even smelling it after she washes it, as much as it makes her laugh in disbelief. 

She crawls into his lap, still tugging on his hair, glad he’s always kept it long, and peppers kissing along his neck, under his beard, as he responds in kind across the arch of her shoulder blade. They call him a cold man, her husband, but his touch is anything but, and he sighs aloud when her hands move from his hair to the back of his neck, and she can almost feel his skin prickling and pebbling under her touch. 

“Cat,” he says, and that is all. That is all he ever needs to say. She kisses his lips, adjusts her position as he wraps his arms around her, her knee pressing down across his thighs, and sighs herself when he strokes her scalp so slowly and gently, even as his kisses turn wilder and more passionate. 

It is all she ever wanted in a marriage, this sort of easy, thrilling intimacy. She is so very glad to have achieved it with him, and would not wish it with anyone else. 

Mine, she thinks, he is mine, and I am so lucky to have him. She feels all the more lucky when his hands move to cup her bottom, and she grins against his mouth, humming to herself.


	39. Kiss pressed atop the head (Donella/Robb)

#43 - Nell/Robb and Lysara

“What are you working on?” Robb asks her, but his daughter is bent in concentration over her inky drawing, hands cover in black splotches. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, which she smiles at, without looking up from her drawing, and sits down beside Nell in a chair by the fire. 

She takes his hands in hers to warm them, then wrinkles her nose. “There’s snow melting in your hair.”

He brushes at it distractedly, then glances back at her. “And how are you faring this evening?”

Nell puts her free hand on her belly, waiting for the responding kick, then smiles. “Well enough, I think. He’s more active than her, for certain.”

“She,” Lysara insists, finally coming over with her drawing. “It’s a sister.”

Robb leans down and tweaks her nose. “Is that so?”

“Mmhm. I dreamt it,” Lysara informs him soberly, then waves her runny picture at him. “Look, I drew it.”

He studies the yellowed paper, which depicts two tall figures, a short figure, and a little blob that must be the babe. And some sort of dog. Grey Wind, probably, who comes over to sniff at the paper as well. Nell teasingly puts her legs up on his back, which her tolerates with his usual good humour. 

“This,” says Robb, scooping Lysara into his lap, “is the finest drawing I have ever seen. We’ll have to have it framed.”

“Robb,” Nell mutters under her breath; she thinks he spoils their firstborn too much, but he does not see how a child as sweet and good as Lysara, with her freckled face and auburn ringlets and pale grey eyes, could ever be spoiled. She tugs at his beard, and he obediently kisses her on the cheek, then tickles her when she squeals because some snow has dripped down on her neck.


	40. Kiss interrupted (Maegor/Aemma)

#22 - Maegor/Aemma

Aemma did not even hear the door opening until Maegor nearly drops her, at which point she squeals in outrage and all but claws her way down his chest like an angry kitten. Then she sees Alys, standing in the doorframe, looking incensed. “Really?” she hisses, shutting it behind her. “You are being wed on the morrow! Could you not have waited twelve more hours!”

Maegor, of course, is mortified, bright red in the face and speaking so low he can barely be heard. “Lady Alys, you have my solemn word, I did not violate Aemma’s honor-,”

“Will you be quiet?” Aemma snaps at him, then whirls on her aunt. “We are all but wed already! What is it to you if we wish to kiss one another in private! We have already promised ourselves to one another!”

“Your first kiss,” Alys retorts, “ought to be in full view of the gods, in the sept-,”

“Oh, shall I simply forget the time I caught you and Elys under that stairwell?”

“He was helping me look for an earring!”

Aemma scoffs aloud. “Oh? Where was it, Alys? Halfway down your bosom?”

Maegor looks even more mortified, and murmurs something about needing to check on his mother, maneuvering around the two petite Arryn women shouting at one another, and skirting through the door. 

“Maegor!” Aemma and Alys roar after him at the same time, but he is long gone.

“Must you ruin everything?” Aemma snaps at Alys, once it is clear he is not returning.

“Don’t be so dramatic, I cannot ruin what you were already on your way to freely giving up-,”

The next morning, they both have all sorts of clever excuses as to why Alys’ left cheek is bright red and smarting, and how a lock of Aemma’s sandy blonde hair got inexplicably caught up in Alys’ prized sapphire ring.


	41. Deep kisses, hands tangled in hair (Bran/Shireen)

#24 - Bran/Shireen

If her mother could see her now, Shireen reflects wryly, she would be apoplectic with fury. 

And she would never usually find that thought amusing, but she cannot help it when she is in the most ludicrous of positions, perched in Brandon Stark’s lap, her fingers running through his long, dark auburn hair, his enmeshed in her black ringlets, kissing so fiercely she can scarcely breathe. 

If her father were here- oh, that hardly bears thinking about. She is seventeen and a woman grown, or near enough, and she and Bran are betrothed and have been so for years- what does it matter what they wish to do in private? 

Plenty their age are already married. Grateful as she is that her parents insisted she not be wed before her sixteenth nameday, and that she wait even longer, for they fear not only that she will struggle to conceive but that she may struggle in the birthing bed as well, for her hips are narrower, like her mother’s- she cannot say she is grateful to still be chaperoned and shepherded about like a little lamb whenever she is around Bran. 

So if it comes to this, a reunion in the dark of the empty solar, so be it. 

He breaks the kiss, looking up at her through lazily half-lidded eyes, and gives one of his strange half-smiles, part teasing, part total sobriety. 

Shireen smiles back- she is never self conscious about her scarred smile in front of Bran- and nuzzles her face against his, then gasps a little when he turns her around and propels them a little ways forward in his wheeled chair, so they can see out the windows, watch the summer snow spiraling lazily down outside, lit by distant torch light. 

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers. He nods, and kisses her on the cheek.

“So are you.”


	42. Morning kisses (Rhaella/Rickard)

#11 - Rhaella/Rickard

Rickard has never been kissed awake before, but cannot say it’s an unpleasant sensation. When he opens his eyes, his vision blurs before he makes out the silver and gold hair of his wife, her pale, heart-shaped face, and her lilac eyes, still closed. He mops some of her hair out of both of their faces, and sits up, gathering her into his arms. She sighs in pleasure and lets her head rest against his scarred chest. 

When they were first wed, after all she had suffered, he could have never expected she would ever initiate such a thing. He did not think her weak or timid, but he understood that it was likely, reasonable, in her mind, to never wish to be so vulnerable with any man at all. But to have her come to him like this- he loved Lyarra dearly, and still does, but she was not the sort of woman to wake a lover, a husband, with a shower of feather light kisses.

Rhaella smiles sleepily at him, licking her lips. “Are you well rested, husband?”

“Very,” he massages her back, enjoying the feeling of her arching her spine under his touch. “And you, wife?”

“I could stand to stay abed a little while long,” she murmurs, peering up at him almost teasingly.

He presses a kiss to her brow. “I agree. You should take as much time as you require to be prepared for the day.”

“Oh, good.” She wriggles from his arms to kiss him properly, grinning like a girl, and not a woman past forty, wed and widowed and wed again. It makes him feel young again too, less the severe father of children most grown themselves, and more like the over-eager boy he was when he married for the first time, unsure but enthusiastic.


	43. Wild kisses brought on by a gift (Daenora/Sebastion)

#6 - Daenora/Sebastion

Daenora cannot recall the last time she was given a gift from a lover, perhaps because she has never really had one before, beyond the odd fleeting flirtation here and there when Maegor was a boy. But she never could be sure whether those preening, arrogant men were interested in her, or her potential claim to the Iron Throne, so that they might sire a son on her and make a rebellion of their own. 

This is different. Sebastian is different. It feels real, not like a performance for the court, because they are not at court, but on stomy, wind-tossed, haunted Witch Isle, or so the singers call it, and in the heart of this dark little castle with its menacing gargoyles and spellbooks locked up in the library, she thinks she has found a man with a purer heart than any she has ever known. She unwraps the silk ribbons and turns over the book in her hands wonderingly; a first edition of a collection of Old Valyrian poetry, mostly romance, with a few tragic plays. The cover is brushed with silver painted and lovingly detailed, the page-edges brushed with gold. It smells like the Narrow Sea and the spices of Essos.

Her words catch on her tongue, and in response she simply throws her arms around him and kisses him until they are both out of breath, instead. Outside, lightning crackles, but it might as well be harps and lutes, in her hearing.

“I take it you like it, Princess?” he asks dryly, then smiles when she nods fiercely, tears in her eyes, and kisses him on the cheek. He kisses her in return, until she has to carefully put down the treasured book on a side table so she can devote her full attention to giving her thanks to him, and him alone.


	44. Kisses littered across the face (Lily/James)

#1 - James/Lily

“This- is- torture!” he gasps out, laughing helplessly under her as Lily litters his reddened face with kisses, starting with the bridge of his nose, lips colliding awkwardly with his glasses before he rips them off so he can retaliate. 

“You’ll break them again, throwing them around like that,” she reminds him, but he doesn’t seem to care, instead managing to push him into a seated position so he can kiss her back, only he goes for the neck, not the face, playing dirty as usual. Sometimes she really does think the Hat sorts too soon, but Slughorn would say the same thing about her. Ew. She is not going to think about their Potions professor right now-

“James!” she gasps out, when he nips playfully at her ears, batting at him as she snickers helplessly. “Stop that!”

“This is just fair turnabout,” he pokes her in the ribs on one side, then the other for good measure. “You get what you deserve, Evans!”

She flips her long hair in his face to distract him, then tickles him viciously around the middle, tackling him to the ground again when he howls with laughter, and resisting all attempts he makes to buck her off, shrieking and giggling herself. Finally they both subside into quiet, lying atop one another, studying the lines of each other’s flushed faces, and very much liking what they see. There are tears of mirth in his hazel eyes. She thinks it brings out the flecks of blue in them.

“Well,” he finally says, “I’d deduct points from Gryffindor for that brazen display, Evans, but unfortunately I am a nepotist.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Indeed,” he nods with mock seriousness, “and since we may soon be related-,”

“James, we are never getting married,” she huffs, rolling off with a groan. “Ever.”

“You say that now, but this time last year, you said the same thing about us going steady-,”


	45. Kiss pressed atop the head (Tom/Amy)

#43 - Tom/Amy

She is sitting up against the window beside his bed, the cold pane freezing against her back, drawing in her sketchbook, and he is reading, each of them, she thinks, comforted by the mundane sounds of the other’s existence- the scratch of pencil, the dry flip of the pages. Her sock-covered foot is resting up against his. 

The warm glow of the lamp casts half his face in shadows when she glances over at him. She is slumped, posture terrible, while he sits up ram-rod straight, legs criss-crossed under him, neat and perfect as ever. She looks back down at her sketch, which is of a beach. She does not know why, maybe because it was sweltering today and she wishes they’d been able to go to the beach. 

A shadow falls across her page. She looks up, just as he presses a dry, quick kiss to the top of her head, then kneels back down, returning to his book. He usually doesn’t do something so sweet unless he wants something in return, but this time he says nothing, does nothing, simply reads in silence, although his lips twitch a little when she puts down her pencil and puts her hand in his, squeezing in a steady beat, like her heart in her chest. 

The flip of his pages slows a little, though not entirely, and when she lies down and rests her head against his bent legs, he can be compelled to read aloud, very softly, but compelling all the same, without stumbling over a single word, voice calm and even. She even starts to nod off, though she knows she’ll have a terrible crick in her neck when she wakes. Amy wishes it could be like this always. Just like this. Just the quiet, and his voice, and the stillness of the comfortable intimacy between them.


	46. Lingering kiss before a trip apart (Donella/Harrion)

#46 - Donella/Harrion

She rides with him as far as the outskirts of the winter town, and they rein up to say their goodbyes. Nell is not sure why there is a lump in her throat; it is the middle of spring and the weather is fair. But it has been a very long time since they were apart for more than a few weeks at a time, and he will be gone for months, now. Still, it would not do to play the weepy wife, so she has steeled herself, second nature by now, and presents a composed face to him when he takes her hand in his.

“I will write you as soon as I am able,” he says, gravely.

“I know,” she replies, and then winces when her voice cracks. His look softens. She hates it.

“It will not seem so long an absence, once you remember how badly we’ve bickered, these past few weeks,” he says, trying for levity.

What Nell will not say is that they both know they only bickered so because they knew he was leaving soon. Still. She does smile at him, thinly. “The keep will be quieter without you shouting down the eaves.”

“I don’t shout,” he says, crossly, even as he brushes her hair from her face, whipped as it is by the warm wind.

“You shout,” she says, “and grouse like an old man. And sulk if I am late to dinner.”

“I’m never late to dinner.”

“You are never argumentative, either,” she comments, then kisses him on the lips, intending it to be a demure peck, and surprised when he cups his hand behind her head to make it linger. Then she closes her eyes and leans into it. She will miss him. More than she could have ever predicted she might. Damn him.


	47. Tentative kisses in the dark (Donella/Harrion)

#44 - Donella/Harrion

In the dark, she tells herself, she does not need to feel sorry. It isn’t real. It’s not the same. Much of her marriage with Robb was public- how could it not be? He was a king, she was his queen, her pregnancy was the source of great excitement and spectacle, whispers and murmurs followed them everywhere. 

Well, she is a queen no longer, and Harry Karstark would rather throw himself from the master’s turret than be called a king, she thinks. And there is nothing public about this. In the dark of her rooms, she thinks she can excused, forgiven, that she can feel less a whore or a traitor for wanting- for needing- someone else. Robb would understand. He must understand, she thinks, willing herself not to grow teary. He must. 

Still, even though no one is watching them, and he could be as rough as he pleases, Harry’s kisses are slow and cautious, not from inexperience, she thinks, but from an overabundance of reserve, of reluctance to startle or offend her. As if she were so fragile. She turns towards the warmth of his breath, catches in it her mouth as she reciprocates more firmly, tells herself this is still alright, Robb would understand, it’s not her fault. She is no weaker than any other woman in her position, she tells herself, blindly, as blind as her kisses. It’s alright. 

She feels so alone, sometimes. It is alright to want someone, anyone, to be close to like this. Her wanting cannot be so shameful, surely. But she fears it is all the same. Does her goodmother wish for another man, after losing her husband? No. But Nell continues on this course, reassuring herself it is alright, as their lips meet, again and again. It’s alright. Every kiss need not feel like a new betrayal. Surely.


	48. Kisses that start on fingers (Bran/Shireen)

#34 - Bran/Shireen

What Shireen will say is that after two years of marriage, she can no longer be considered shy about the way she kisses her husband, and in particular she loves his hands. Shireen has her father’s hands; sturdy and square-ish, wide palms and stubby thumbs. Bran’s hands are a work of art in comparison, she thinks, elegant and graceful and long-fingered. She’s watched them deftly turn pages, shuffle through papers, carve little figures of clay and wood for the children of the keep. 

Felt them swiftly unlace her stays, bundle up her skirts, or comb through her curly hair, pushing it away her scarred face- she still, at twenty, cannot quite break the habit of arranging it so that it covers the greyscale, not so much for her own comfort but to set others at ease.

So that is why she kisses his hands, first, starting with those long, delicate fingers, then up his thin wrists and up his wiry arms, hard with muscle from years of wheeling his chair around or climbing up and out of- he hates to rely on her, or any of the servants, if he can avoid it, and his arms are strong enough to show for it. 

Then she reaches his shoulders, his neck, around his jaw and to his lips, at which point he wrenches away, restless, and kisses her in return on the mouth, then on the back of her hands. “I love your hands,” he says, as if he’d read her mind. Perhaps he did. Bran sometimes seems to know what she is about to say before she even opens her mouth to say it. 

Shireen shake her head a little, bemused. “They’re mannish.”

“They’re beautiful,” and he kisses the pads of her fingertips, as if to prove it to her.


	49. A breathy demand of "Kiss me." (Arya/Gendry)

#3 - Arya/Gendry

“Kiss me,” Arya demands, slapping at the back of his shoulder lightly, legs kicking irritably from the table she is sitting atop of. 

Gendry stares back at her, caught between annoyance and confusion, and for an instant she can see the shadow of the boy of five-and-ten she once knew, hidden behind the man of five-and-twenty before her.

“I was,” he says, slowly, as if she’s having trouble with her hearing, raising a thick eyebrow.

“You’ve been nuzzling at my neck like a cat for ages,” Arya counters, wrinkling her nose at him. “I want a proper kiss.”

That gets a smirk out of him, a toothy sort of one. His teeth are crooked, but even whiter than her own. “Oh, the lady wants a proper kiss, does she? On the back of the hand? Should I bow and scrape to, Princess Arya-,”

Arya pushes herself off the table and into his chest, knowing he will catch her; he stumbles back with her in his arms, but does not fall, that’s how big he is. She sometimes wishes she were taller, but at least five foot four is not tiny, or frail, and Sansa has pointed out that she has grown into the hips to make up for it. Besides, if she were taller, she would not be able to sneak up on Gendry when he’s at work quite so efficiently. 

She scrapes her teeth along his lips, then grins when he whirls her around, only for it to vanish as he does lose his balance, laughing, and sending them both toppling to the ground atop some scattered rags. 

“Stupid,” she grouses, unsure if she’s insulting him, herself, of the both of them, but is very slow to get up, and very slow to stop kissing him, now that they’ve started… properly.


	50. Sneaking away for a secret kiss (Lily/Remus)

#12 - Remus/Lily

This is not the way the story is supposed to go. Lily is very much aware. 

The pretty, sweet-natured, bookish girl is supposed to swoon into the arms of the dashing, popular, hot-headed athlete, so they can skip off into the sunset and listen to The Beatles together or park along some canal and make love. Or something. If this were a black and white French film, maybe. Oh, she doesn’t know, she’s hardly what you could call cultured, after being ensconced in a magic castle in the highlands for the past seven years.

But anyways, she’s not stupid, she knows she’s pretty, and she’d like to think she’s got a pretty sweet nature when no one’s acting like a fucking prick, and she is admittedly bookish, just doesn’t like to be a snot about it. 

And Remus might not be dashing, at least not in the traditional sense, or very popular at all, outside of his friendship with James and Sirius, arguably the most popular boys in their year, and he’s got a temper but he keeps it well under wraps, doesn’t feel like he can afford to show it, she knows, and he’s certainly not an athlete, though she wouldn’t call him clumsy. 

However. 

He is kind, and honest, and very, very intelligent- so clever it takes her breath away, sometimes, and he’s quick-witted and curious and has such a dry sense of humor that she’ll think of something he said hours earlier in the shower and start snickering to herself. He’s open-minded, accepting, he never looks down on anyone, he’s quick to forgive and forget, and though he’s suffered more than anyone she’s ever met, not once has he ever used it an excuse to treat someone else terribly. 

And when the light hits his light brown hair, it reminds her of caramel toffy, and his brown eyes are so warm and big in his face, like a doe’s. She’s always loved that about him.

They round a corner in the library, glance away warily, then, deciding the coast is clear, she leans into his embrace, pushing him up against the shelving, then wincing when a book not all the way in starts to topple over. 

Remus catches it, one-handed, then winks. 

Lily has to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing loud enough to attract curious passer-byers. 

He stows the book away, then tilts her chin up with a finger until she pulls away her hand so she can kiss him instead, glorying in the smell of his aftershave and the ink stains on his collar from his fidgeting during their last class, anxious for the bell to ring so they could be dismissed and sneak away.


	51. Tentative kisses in the dark (Sansa/Jeyne)

#44 - Jeyne/Sansa

Jeyne and her have shared a bed thousands of times before, but this time is different. 

Sansa is hyper-conscious of how their bodies brush against each other, the feeling of Jeyne’s legs aligned with her own, the sharp hipbone jutting against hers. If she were to close her eyes, perhaps she might feel they were just one body, temporarily divided into two. 

Sometimes they would pretend they were twins as little girls, though they looked nothing alike, but this is different. They’re not little girls playing games anymore. Nor are they little girls innocently sharing a bed.

She can’t help herself- she turns her head slightly, and is startled to find Jeyne staring at her. 

Seeing the shocked look on Sansa’s face, Jeyne glances away, bashful, and starts to roll over. Sansa stops her with a hesitant hand on her elbow, wriggles a little closer to her, under the heavy covers. Rain patters against the window. Jeyne swallows, then leans closer as well. Their lips are barely an inch apart. 

Sansa’s not sure who closes that gap first, but she doesn’t care. Jeyne’s lips are velvet soft and taste of the applecakes they ate after dinner tonight, still tinged with cinnamon. When they pause, she can see Jeyne’s eyelashes fluttering, so delicate and fragile. She always had lovely, long lashes, that made her brown eyes look all the bigger.

Sansa’s hand find hers under the bedsheets. Their fingers knit together, a silent promise. Then they kiss again, this time not stopping until they find a mutual pleasure that seems to carry Sansa out of the bed entirely, up on some wind, into the rainy night. She imagines the rain not as cold and unpleasant, but a gentle, warm misting against her skin, as gentle and warm as Jeyne’s mouth is, as her tongue is. 

Jeyne sighs against her, and Sansa lets go of her hand to stroke the slender curve of her hip instead.


	52. Tracing lips with a finger before a kiss (Catelyn/Tywin)

#28 - Catelyn/Tywin

In death, his lined, pallid face is waxen, his mouth swollen and blue, the veins of his mottled neck throbbing broken reddish purple. 

Stoneheart studies the corpse curiously, carefully, laid out on the slab of stone table. He seems just another frail old man, in death. Nothing special or striking about him. The sleeting rains and winds have worn away whatever fine clothes he was wearing when the Brotherhood seized him, and any jewelry on him was pilfered and sold off for money for food or horses. 

She wishes they’d left any small part of it. She’d like to take a Lannister ring between her jagged, broken teeth, and bite down until it crumbled into dust. She’d like to throw his gold into the river, see how far the current carries it.

She traces his ugly blue mouth with a gnarled, blackened finger, the nail rotting away, leaving a thin trail of blood in its wake. She wonders if he toasted her boy’s death, when he heard. Or did he simply hide his smile, and congratulate himself on a job well done? 

Catelyn Tully was raised to believe in seven circles of hell. Lady Stoneheart calls upon them now. Reynes, Tarbecks, Castameres, Martells, Targaryens, Mormonts, Umbers, Flints, Manderlys, and Starks, do they dine upon him now, hack his heart up for dinner with their feasting knives? Do their drowned and butchered children kick his head around under the table, play dice for who gets to nibble on his fingers? 

What songs are they singing? 

And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low? Only a fish of a different coat, that’s all the truth I know.

She raises his lax chin, and presses her cold mouth to his in a mocking kiss. Thinks she will make a necklace of his teeth, and cap each one in Lannister gold.


	53. "Do you want to do this?" kiss (Jaime/Berena)

#19 - Berena/Jaime

She’s never known a man- well, just the one man- to stop her mid-kiss before, so she thinks she must have done something wrong, and stills immediately. 

She knows this is not supposed to feel like duty, because it is treason, high treason, to be exact, and whether or not she still cares if she lives or dies, she should have some care for him, by and large an innocent bystander in this rapidly unravelling tragedy. Or as innocent in this specific tragedy, at least. She assumes kissing a queen must feel like nothing terribly profane, after killing a king.

Berena clasps her hands together in her lap, tries to look as though she is listening.

“-want do to this?”

“What?” she says, dumbly. She must look it, too, a stumbling, blind little fool who’s too stupid to even realize what she’s getting herself into, because he extricates himself from her a little more, and repeats himself, slowly.

“Do you want to do this?”

Berena stares. She is in bed with him, clad only in her shift. No one has ever asked her, under those circumstances, or in fact any others, whether or not she wanted to do something. Or if she wanted to do anything at all. Robert- never. She learned long ago that it did not matter what she wanted, and in fact, everything would be ever so lovely if she just smiled, nodded, and stomached whatever was to come.

He’s impatiently waiting for her answer, so she nods. That doesn’t seem to convince him, and she can see him struggle with it, perhaps debating whether to bundle her up and out of her bed, avert this crisis before it can truly carry them both away with it. His baser nature wins out, she assumes, or simply his nature- who is she to call anyone base, at this point? 

She is the lowest of the low. Gaily tossing aside her crown and duties for the barest hope of any pleasure, any choice at all. She should be writhing on the ground like a worm, begging the gods for forgiveness. Instead she is eagerly responding to his kiss, eagerly casting aside all responsibility, eagerly avoiding the glaring truth- that she, at her core, is just as honorless as he.


	54. Wet kisses after escaping the rain (Sansa/Podrick)

#25 - Pod/Sansa

“Oh,” Sansa gasps aloud when the sky above them opens up, and flips up the hood of her cloak to no avail- she’s immediately soaked through to the skin, to the bone, and Pod as well, the rain matting his dark hair to his pale temple instantly. 

Her hand, grasping, finds his, and they run for the relative cover of the nearest building, the small town’s paltry stables, ducking into an unoccupied alcove. They’ve been on the road for three weeks now, and Sansa is just beginning to allow herself to believe that they may have successfully evaded capture, though now she frets that the rain will have diluted the cheap, dark brown dye in her hair, which she cropped to her chin with Podrick’s knife on the night of their escape- the night of the Blackwater. 

She’s still not used to not feeling its familiar weight down her back or piled atop her head, and her neck feels much colder, but she will say she is glad to not have to worry about it getting easily tangled or caught on things, especially since she has no brush anymore, just her fingers. She only took two gowns with her; her simplest, warmest ones, both slightly too small for her, but better than nothing. Pod has been in the same worn and stained clothes since they left, including his battered patchmail shirt and the ravaged scabbard of his short-sword. 

He is not very skilled with it, and Sansa knows their best hope is not to be caught or waylaid at all. She does not doubt Pod would fight to defend her, but he is just a squire, and very young besides.

The same age as her. It feels so strange to think about. She’d never thought of it before. 

“Sorry,” he says, miserably. “We should have stayed longer at the inn.” 

They have not yet run out of money, for Sansa has been covertly selling off the small amount of stolen jewelry they made off with, usually breaking it apart with a hammer or mallet beforehand to avoid even more suspicion, and Pod came with a purse full of gold she suspects he took off a corpse. 

But they cannot spend more than a tiny bit at a time, lest they attract the attention of robbers or spies for the Lannisters, and she keeps telling herself it’s alright, just one day at a time until they can make it to the castle of a leal bannerman of her uncle’s- the Blackwoods, perhaps, they would take them in without question, she can prove she is a Stark, she knows she can.

Caught up in her thoughts, wanting to reassure him all the same, she reaches over and impulsively pecks him on the cheek. He flares as scarlet as if she’d given him a slap. 

Sansa draws back, lips pressed together, feeling guilty. She should not have done that. 

But then he squeezes, briefly, her hand in his, and after a moment’s hesitation, leans over and gives her a kiss in return, lips wet from the rain.


	55. Fierce kiss that ends with a bite (Young Griff/Jonelle)

#15 - Jon/Young Griff

Jonelle did not stowaway on a ship from King’s Landing to Pentos, join a mummer’s troupe as a singer, escape from brigands, run through a field of fire in the middle of a battle between sellsword companies, take up a brief existence as a pickpocket, spend fifteen nights in a ruined prison underneath an Old Valyrian temple, steal a dragon egg, lose the dragon egg, steal back the dragon egg, and wash up along the Rhoyne to meet some ingrate claiming he is the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen- the very man whose paternity drove her into exile in the first place, when Varys informed on her to the Lannisters after prying the information out of her delirious, feverish father before he was unceremoniously executed- and be charmingly swept off her feet. 

For the love of the gods, if it were true- which it is not, she tells herself, very firmly, it is not true- he would be her half-brother! 

But it is not true, because this is real life, not one of Sansa’s or Arya’s fantastical tales of adventure and romance. And she is far from impressed with this cocky, arrogant, pig-headed, immature, temperamental, snot-nosed prick who claims he is eight-and-ten but seems to her closer to five-and-ten, if that. 

Perhaps it’s the fact that they are near the same height; she’d thought she’d inherited her mother’s lankiness, whoever she was. That too, was a lie. 

And even if- if Aunt Lyanna is her mother- her troubled thoughts are interrupted by Griff, the shit, doing his level best to stick his tongue down her throat, caging her against the wall with one wiry arm. 

Jonelle barely suppresses an eye roll, bites down, hard, to get him to jerk back in shock- she assumes even pretend princes aren’t used to their advances being rejected- and ignores his attempt to turn it into something salacious by licking the blood from his lip. 

“You’ve got a hair dye stain on your neck,” she informs him, coldly, pointing it out with a skinny finger.


	56. Kiss paired with a tight hug (Gendry/Jorelle)

#47 - Jorelle/Gendry

Jory is waiting impatiently by the docks, ignoring Lyanna’s snide remarks, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, the rare spat of beautiful, sunny weather that Bear Island is seeing utterly lost on her. 

Gulls caw overhead, waves break against the shore, and around her the small fishing port bustles with movement and conversation, but she is willfully ignorant to all of it until she sees the gangplank lower, and then she pushes off from the stone wall she was leaning against, maneuvers deftly through the crowd, heart pounding in her chest, and stops at the end of the dock, feeling the wind rush in from off the sea to caress her face. 

She sees him then, and though she meant to play the dignified lady (for once) and wait patiently for him to come to her, now she tosses aside all pretense and races forward, the skirts of her riding gown parting to reveal her breeches underneath. She picks up speed and crashes into him with all the force of a wave, wrapping her arms around his sunburnt neck and kissing him soundly on the mouth. 

He kisses her back, enthusiastically, and swings her around, prompting a shout from one of the passing sailors, who is almost kicked in the stomach. Jory settles back down on the dock, staring up at Gendry with a wide, foolish grin on her face, as he smiles broadly back down at her. 

“I take it you missed me,” he says, lips twitching.

She kisses him again in response, then grabs his calloused hand in her own, their fingers locking together. “Come meet my sister. Or one of them, anyways.”

“Should I be scared?” he japes. 

Jory just shakes her head, deciding she’ll let Lyanna speak for herself, as her little sister strides forward, face set in her classical haughty scowl.


	57. Wild kisses brought on by a gift (Shireen/Devan)

#6 - Devan/Shireen

Shireen stands stiffly with her hands clasped together, a tendency inherited from her father, as Devan unwraps his name day gift. 

At sixteen he is already nearly a head taller than his slight and stooped father, and he has his mother’s square face and warm brown eyes, though when he cuts his hair the resemblance to Ser Davos is striking. His beard is nearly an entire shade lighter than the hair atop his head; Shireen has heard Devan teased for it many times, but she thinks it charming, not laughable. Nothing about Devan is laughable, if you ask her. 

She watches as Devan pulls out the embellished scabbard, glancing up at her, wide-eyed, then stands and unsheathes the sword. 

The Valyrian steel ripples in the morning sunshine like molten silver, and the hilt is black, embedded with obsidian mined from Dragonstone, where they both spent so much time as children. 

“Shireen,” Devan says, uncertainly, as he will only call her that in private. “This- this sword is too much, you should not- I am not worthy of such a-,”

“You,” says Shireen, crisply, “are the first and foremost of my knights, the Lord Commander of my Queensguard, and I can think of no one better to wield it. What will you call it?”

He looks even more startled. “I- I don’t know.”

Shireen takes his hand, smiling. “Well, we shall have to think of one together.”

Devan glances at her; they are the same height, Shireen perhaps half an inch taller, then breaks into a genuine, broad grin, and kisses her until she is breathless and red down the unblemished side of her face and neck. 

Then he sheathes the sword to kiss her again, properly, taking her by the waist, and Shireen has to fight back the wave of giddy joy in her chest, even her crown fall askew among her thick hair, and they bump up against the table.


	58. Kissing tears from the face (Donella/Robb)

#39 - Robb/Nell

She’s shaken awake, disoriented and tearful from her nightmare. Nell doesn’t remember it; she never remembers the very worst ones, just the fear, the ravenous, tearing fear as if she were plummeting through broken ice, or out a very high window, down into the cold depths. 

To her surprise, Robb is propped up in bed, his hand on her shoulder, looking concerned, even alarmed. She doesn’t think she’s ever woken him during one of her nightmares before. 

“Are you alright?” he says groggily, removing his warm hand from her shoulder.

“Fine,” Nell tries to say, but it comes out all choked off and hoarse, and when his expression creases further, she wipes at her eyes with one hand, trying to roll over, away from him. “I’m sorry to wake you, I’m fine.”

He pulls her close instead, although they’ve only been wed two moons, and barely been at Riverrun a fortnight, and though her impulse is to jerk away and refuse this touch- she’s not a child, she doesn’t need to be consoled like one- he feels warm and safe and smells reassuringly familiar. Her face lands in the crook of his freckled elbow, then against his chest. 

“It was just a dream,” he says, voice muffled into her hair. “It’s alright. I have you.”

I know it was just a dream, that’s the worst part, she wants to say. She can’t fight or escape a dream. 

Instead she tilts her head up to look at him, startled by his open display of concern, that he takes this so seriously. It was just a dream. He did not even have to stay the night in her bed. 

He kisses a tear off her cheek in response, hesitantly, and Nell blinks in shock, then squeezes his shoulder, feeling choked up again.


	59. Deep kisses, hands tangled in hair (Donella/Robb)

#24 - Nell/Robb

Nell has always been very particular about who she lets touch her hair. 

It isn’t curly, but it is thick and wavy and prone to tangle, and as she has always worn it long, it has always been a hassle to manage. Dana used to playfully tug on it, and it would send her into a rage, her scalp was so sensitive and her nerves so fraught. She and Barbrey used to argue bitterly while her aunt combed it out every night after her bath. Any of the boys she’s kissed, she never much liked it when they tried to put their hands in it.

But Robb is different; his hands gentle and careful, not yanking or pulling as though she were a ragdoll, and since she loves to bury her hands in his thick auburn hair, it seems only fair to extend the same courtesy to him. 

Nell moves half into his lap with a sigh as he kisses her, feeling his fingers prickle down her scalp, then scratches at his with her nails, the way she knows he likes. He pulls her all the way into his lap, ignoring her muffled exclamation, and leans back against the lopsided pillows as she keeps one hand in his hair, one splayed out against his chest. 

A faint whimper from the cradle by the window distracts both of them, coming up for air.

Robb smiles ruefully. Nell says nothing but can feel the heat in her face, silly as it is to still be blushing or tongue-tied when her husband kisses her. 

Lysara whimpers again, and she scrambles off him, ignoring his half-hearted grab at her waist, and checks on their daughter, who is fussing because one of her socks has fallen off. 

Nell puts it back on, adjusting the blankets wrapped around the babe, and feels Robb come up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder, smelling her hair. 

She catches a glimpse of their reflection in the windowpane, and smiles.


	60. Kiss pressed atop the head (Tom & Mae)

#43 - Tom & Mae

She’s left all the lights on, again, and her record player is warbling along upstairs. 

Tom takes off his coat and hat and moves irritably down the hall, somewhat relieved that at least she’s not cooking something. The last time she tried to make use of the kitchen it looked as though several murders had been committed. 

As pleased as he is to have Mae close, he thinks he deserved a bit more fair warning as to the various annoyances brought up on by living with a teenage girl. The plethora of hair in the shower drain, for example, or her habit of leaving her things lying around for him to trip over, or the fact that she never goes to sleep at a reasonable hour and he can hear her moving around in her bedroom at all hours of the night, listening to music or pacing. 

He steps into the sitting room, face already set in a reproving stare, to find her passed out on the sofa, a book half-open across her chest, her dark bangs falling over her eyes. He stands there, for a moment, expecting her to snap awake, annoyed he caught her napping, but when she does not stir, he carefully approaches the sofa. 

Her shoes are scattered across the floor, she’s cuffed up her blue jeans like a farmhand, and her blouse is a rumpled mess. Tom slowly removes the book from her chest, closing it and mentally remarking on the fact that like him, she never uses a bookmark and simply memorizes the page number, and setting it down on the side table.

“Mae,” he says, quietly, but she doesn’t stir, only mumbles softly in her sleep, turning over a little so her face is buried in the cushion. She sleeps like her mother, in an almost fetal position, hands tucked up under her chin in balled fists. 

Tom knows he should wake her, she’ll be up all night if she keeps sleeping, but he cannot quite bring himself to. Instead he goes to get a blanket for her. The draft in the house is particularly bad during the winter months. 

When he returns, he pulls it over her, then hesitates, before pressing a quick, almost self-conscious kiss to her head. Her mouth twitches in her sleep, but still she does not stir.


	61. Tracing lips with a finger before a kiss (Donella/Harrion)

#28 - Harrion/Donella

Harry has never seen her drunk before and never thought to; the Starks have never been ones much inclined to drunkenness (or merry-making in general, some would contend), and while she is a Bolton by birth and his father always said the Boltons were gluttonous pigs who were not happy unless they were nose-deep in fat dripping from the bone and cups of bloody marrow, his father was also well in his own cups at that moment. 

Much had been made of Robb’s youth when he was crowned and truth be told Harry thinks there were some great hopes that they would be like Cregan Stark come again, growing rich off the fat of the land and making toasts and feasting with the Rivermen until winter, after they’d trounced the Lannisters. 

But Robb had been just as reserved as his father when it came to drinking and feasting, and his wife- for that was how Harry had known her then, however briefly before the armies divided- his wife was much the same. 

His brother Edd had made some dirty jape during the wedding feast, Harry remembers, about how mayhaps Donella Bolton had been tutored by her aunt in how to please a man, because their father was also apt to claim that Barbrey Dustin had been ‘the ride of the North, back in my day’, but Harry once heard from a uncle that this claim derived less from first hand accounts of Lady Dustin’s supposed wiles, and more from the fact that she’d once poured her drink down Rickard Karstark’s tunic when he made a suggestive comment to her at a horse race. 

All that aside, Harry is not sure what to make of the fact that when drunk Nell does not weep, as some do, or rage, but instead becomes- well- flirtatious and he would be laughing himself silly at the thought that she is now running a finger along his lips, grinning like a fiend, if he were not a little drunk himself. 

He jerks away out of impulse when her nail scratches at his chin; it tickles; then pulls her close, ignoring her laughter to tilt her chin up so he can kiss her properly.


	62. Kiss on the back of the hand (Jaime/Berena)

#8 - Jaime/Berena

Robert is off to put down the Greyjoys, and she is trying to put down her son for bed, though Steffon is making this very difficult. 

Berena is not sure if it was because she was the youngest in her family and never had any little cousins to dote on, so she is simply unused to small children, or if it’s because her firstborn is unusually clingy. He did not make much of a fuss when Robert went, which saddened her and him both, she thinks; he is four years old now, old enough to understand an absence, but perhaps not such a long one. 

Robert masked it by claiming pride over Steffon acting like a ‘brave little man’, though he was burying his face in Berena’s neck while his father said it. 

A ruffle of his curls and Robert was gone, leaving her behind with their son, his miniature in appearance save for his pale blue eyes, so light a blue they look grey in many lights- and with Ser Jaime, who did not do much to hide his utter contempt for being left to guard the pregnant queen and little prince, while most of the men of court bounded off on their grand adventure.

She can hear him shifting in his armor in the doorway now; Berena is not supposed to even step into the nursery alone, in case of waiting assassins- and how Robert worries so, now that he has a son that is his mirror image, their perfect Baratheon prince. Not so perfect when he is dribbling snot and screaming. 

At least Renly was moved out of the nursery and into his own room, now, too old for that at twelve by far, but he is upset too, for Robert laughed off the idea of taking him along as a squire. Privately, Berena was relieved, and told him as much. One of the few things they have agreed on, as of late. Renly has no business sailing into battle alongside his brothers, tall as he is for his age. The risk is too great.

Still, that leaves her surrounded by upset men- boys- on all fronts. She finally settles Steffon with a story; he might not like her much most days, when he isn’t clinging to her, but he does love stories, and once he’s nodded off, face still angry and flushed, even in the grips of peaceful sleep, she tiredly rises, a hand on her belly, though it can’t much be seen yet through her gown. 

“He’s a terror,” Jaime says, closing the door behind her as she steps out into the hall. “I say it with all the love and loyalty in my heart, Your Grace, but I do not think even Tyrion wailed half so much at that age.”

Berena ignores him until they are secluded within the relative privacy of her apartments, then kicks off her slippers, too tight on her swelling feet. “How I look forward to your regular praise of the crown prince, Ser.”

“Don’t pout, Your Grace,” he says, sitting down and stretching out his legs as if he intends to stay awhile. “He’s a hearty little thing, and that’s what matters, surely.” He has reached a level of irony where she is not sure if he even knows whether he is being sarcastic any longer or not.

Berena steps closer to him, though she is unimpressed. “So is this one. Kicking me every time I forget about him.”

Almost absently, he takes her hand in his, and when she stares, makes a jape of it by pressing a gallant kiss to the back of her hand. Men kiss her on the hand all the time. Robert, Jon Arryn, Stannis, looking as though he’d swallowed a frog, even old Tywin, though it always gives her an internal shudder. 

Still, he ought not to look at her so long while doing it, though the illusion of chivalry shatters as soon as he smirks, and she removes her hand, pointedly, and sends him for her maid, knowing he hates to be made an errand boy, and taking a perverse delight in it.


	63. Kiss paired with a tight hug (Lyra/Olyvar)

#47 - Olyvar/Lyra

Lyra runs into him as she rounds a corner of the narrow, claustrophobic corridor that runs through Greywater Watch, bringing to mind more the belly of a ship than a castle. 

She has not seen Olyvar Frey in months and months and feared he was dead, and worse, feared that he died feeling little but vague contempt for her, for the last time they spoke they had a terrible row about his bloody honor and his refusal to take her to bed and her insistence that even if they did ever marry, she would certainly not be setting down axe and shield in order to be his merry wife, waving him off to battle with a kerchief in hand.

All that aside, they stare at one another, startled. 

She is sure he is a little taller and she a little gaunter; his hair is shorter, cropped around his ears as opposed to the dark, almost delicate waves he had before, and hers is ever longer. 

His lips move but no sound comes out for a moment, and then he’s on her, wrapping her tightly in an embrace with a choked off sound she wants to tease him about but can’t, for she’s on the verge of tears herself. Shortly he seems to remember himself, to her dismay, and steps back, bright red. “Lady Jorelle. Forgive my-,”

Lyra kisses him just to shut him up before he can go on another long winded speech about how he is not worthy of her and how reckless she is and how dishonored he is and how they worship different gods and how he is not even a knight and how she deserves a man who could protect her, none of which she actually cares about, all of which she suspects he, deep down, doesn’t quite care about half as much as he claims to, judging by the way he is kissing her back.


	64. Kiss interrupted (Donella/Robb)

#22 - Donella/Robb

Dana walks in to find Nell, her skirts hitched up about her waist, all but straddling a shirtless Robb, squawks in alarm, and rapidly backs out, slamming the door after her and calling a thousand apologies through it. 

Nell wants to scream back at her to shut up already before the entire castle shows up to see what all the fuss is about, but is too busy trying to get over the monumental mortification of her best friend seeing her behaving like a tavern wench while her husband simply lies back on the bed in shock, then starts to seize with helpless chuckles.

Nell gets off him, waspish, pulling up her stockings. “It’s not funny, Robb,” she hisses. Truth be told, she can’t be that angry with Dana because Robb usually does not have the time during the day for them to have any privacy at all just to talk in passing, never mind retire to her bedchamber like this. But that doesn’t help her embarrassment much at all.

“It was just Danelle,” he says, in between snickers, sounding less a man and more a little boy. “It could have been worse- it could have been Edmure, or my mother-,”

“Don’t even say such a thing!” Edmure would never let them live it down, and she’d never be able to look Catelyn in the eyes again.

Dana knocks on the door awkwardly. “Nell, I only meant to say- that is, Your Graces- that Lady Catelyn was looking for you-,”

“Thank the gods it really wasn’t my mother,” Robb mutters at that, as Nell buries her face in her hands, and Dana retreats, having given up on reasoning with them. 

“Next time,” Nell says through her teeth, “we are barring the door.”

Robb squeezes her hand affectionately. “Alright. Under lock and key-,”

“Robb!”


	65. Kiss on the back of the hand (Myrcella/Trystane)

#8 - Myrcella/Trystane

It seems horribly unfair that at thirteen she should catch redspots, the illness she pretended to have at ten so that Arianne could scheme to put her on the Iron Throne, but the one good thing about is that Trystane did catch it years ago, and so can stay by her side throughout the humiliating ordeal of being bedbound with a mild on-and-off fever and a furiously itchy rash across her face, chest, and arms. 

She picks freely at the scabs; the scarring Gerold Dayne left her with cuts a jagged, ropy line from the right side of her mouth, up her cheek, to where her ear used to be. From a distance, it looks like a grotesque, crooked extension of her smile. Any minor marks left by redspots would be inconsequential in comparison. 

Myrcella has accepted her looks, by now. She will never be beautiful, she will never not be the subject of horrified and revolted stares, whispers, and murmurs whenever she enters a room, no matter how beautifully she arranges her golden ringlets, how lavish and colorful her silken gowns are, or what sort of gossamer veils she drapes over her ruined face. 

But that does not seem to matter when she spends time with Trystane, who has never looked at her scars with anything other than admiration, who has never been anything but kind to her. 

To distract her they play round after round of cyvasse, and though she used to beat him near every time, they are more evenly matched now, and when he wins he bursts into delighted chuckles while she pretends to pout, folding her blotchy, itching arms under her chest and looking down her nose at him. 

He takes her hand, and ignoring her protests that it is sweaty and disgusting from her fever, kisses her knuckles. 

Myrcella feels a burst of affection in her chest, like the orange blossoms in full bloom outside her window, swaying in the breeze.


	66. Lingering kiss before a trip apart (Donella/Robb)

#10 - Robb/Nell

Nell kisses him once in the hall, then again in the yard, and a third time under the portcullis, ignoring the snowflakes catching in her hair or his horse raring to canter off and the distraught look in his blue eyes, as carefully composed as his face may be, when she pulls away. 

They are two years wed with one child to show for it and she often fears she will wake up one day, back at the Dreadfort, and find it was all just a pleasant dream, a fantasy, that those years of their betrothal and marriage were nothing more than figments of an overactive imagination. That he will be wrenched away from her. 

She wonders if she might be with child again; Lysara is a little over a year old now and it is certainly high time they tried for a son, but she won’t be certain until she knows if her moon’s blood is skipping or not. 

And even then, a son is not him. She breaks away from the kiss, studies his face, his eyes and nose and mouth and the coppery stubble on his chin, then sniffs. 

“Don’t be long,” she says, as if he were just riding into town. “You know I will be quite cold without you and Grey Wind.” Robb wanted to leave his wolf behind to protect her and Lysara, but Nell refused. She trusts Grey Wind to keep him safe more than she does any of his men. A wolf relies on instinct, men on their commands, and Robb has a damnable self-sacrificing streak, it must be a Stark trait. 

She hopes Lysara inherited some of her Bolton pragmatism instead. 

“I’ll return to you,” he says. “I swear it.”

Nell looks away so she will not curse him for his silly promises, or see her start to cry.


	67. Kisses on tiptoes (Rhaella/Rickard)

#48 - Rhaella/Rickard

He finds her sitting on a stump beside the hot springs, almost laughable in its simplicity when one considers that she came to him in the finery of a queen, albeit one who’d already surrendered her crown. 

Rhaella has dressed modestly for as long as he’s known her as his wife; she seldom wears jewelry, unless they are hosting guests at a feast, and she seems to be prefer to wear her hair down or plaited, rather than in any of the elaborate styles she might otherwise choose. 

She says it is because she has a tender scalp, but Rickard think it is because wearing her thick hair up reminds her of the weight of a crown. He is glad she has not cut it, though. He likes it long and likes to run his fingers through it, marveling at how they are lost in the silver gold weave. 

He walks lightly, so she does not hear his approach until he is nearly behind her, but then turns, lilac eyes widening slightly, but beyond that, a slight smile playing on her lips. 

She begins to rise to greet him, but he stills her with his hands firm on her shoulders instead, and leans down to kiss her as she angles her pale face up to meet him. 

Their lips brush as if they were tentative young lovers, then deepen into a proper kiss, and he moves from standing slightly hunched to a crouch to kneeling on the mossy ground beside her, holding her as she turns her body into his arms, his knee jutting against the rough bark of the stump, the steam rising off the springs warming his previously cool face. She is hot; she always runs hot, as though she conducted her own heat, a fire burning within her breast.


	68. Accidental brush of the lips (Jon/Daenerys)

#4 - Jon/Daenerys

Her lips brush against his while she is trying to help him out of the saddle. Bloodied and burned and caked with ice and snow, he leans against her more corpse than man, breathing heavily and haggardly, and they stay like that before dropping into an exhausted heap against Rhaegel’s warm, scaly side, somewhat sheltered by his wingspan. 

Daenerys can feel blood dripping hot down her scalp, and Jon’s eyes are almost swollen shut. Her lips prickle, from the cold or the pain or the kiss, she’s not sure. She slumps against him, leans her head against his shoulder, gently lifts his injured leg across her lap.

“Why did you do that?” he asks, tiredly. He doesn’t sound disappointed or angry, just exhausted and world weary, wearier than she has ever heard anyone in her life.

“I don’t know,” she says, though she does. “Do you feel better?”

“I’ll feel better when we’ve destroyed them all,” he’s as curt as ever, she thinks with something like cross fondness. Is that possible? 

“We will,” she takes his hand in her own, clumsily; their heavy gloves make it difficult to interlace fingers. Daenerys watches her breath mist in front of her, intermingle with his. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he coughs, painfully.

“For coming with me to do this. For flying with me.”

I didn’t do it for you, she thinks he must be thinking, but instead he says, “We’ll finish it together. Alright?”

“Alright,” Dany says, blinking back hot tears. “Alright, Jon Snow. I will hold you to it.” 

The wind is howling around them, screaming its way through the valley of ice and snow. She thinks of his wolf, left behind at Winterfell to protect his family, and then glances at him again. 

His eyes are shut, but his hand squeezes hers firmly.


End file.
